


Think of Me

by TheHolosexualPan



Series: Witcher Fanfics [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Confessions, Dissasociative Amnesia, Flashbacks, Healing, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Magical Accidents, Non-Chronological, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Regret, Torture, Trauma induced dissasociative disorders, he gets better tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22960555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHolosexualPan/pseuds/TheHolosexualPan
Summary: A witcher, a sorceress and a princess stumble upon a humble bard.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Witcher Fanfics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646332
Comments: 104
Kudos: 714





	1. Yennefer

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Sleep Perchance To](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391860) by [sospes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes). 



> Please heed the warnings!  
> However, if the tags are a bit chaotic and hard to read, I will reiterate here:  
> Jaskier has been tortured heavily, both psychologically (isolation, deprivation of food and light and emotional manipulation for the most part) and physically (broken bones, heavy bruising, internal bleeding, cuts, burns, nerve damage from lack of blood circulation). The mental effects are a bit unrealistic however, due to the magical nature of the worst injury, the one which keeps his body from healing and his mind in an endless nightmareish state. It is also heavily implied, though not stated outright, that Jaskier was raped during his time in captivity.
> 
> It is a hurt/comfort fic, but there is a lot more hurt presently and a lot more future comfort implied. My inspiration was the fic "To Sleep Perchance To" written by sospes and me reading about trauma induced dissasociative disorders.
> 
> If you find this material triggering, for whatever reason, please do not read further, take care of yourself!
> 
> Otherwise, 'enjoy' this morbid little thing :'>

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We will figure out what happened and how to help him after he wakes up Geralt”, she does say.  
> If Jaskier wakes up, Yennefer doesn’t say.

If one were asked to describe one Yennefer of Vengerberg, one would be inclined to say she was ruthless but beautiful. A flower bush filled with bloodied thorns. However, she herself would say that, at least after the battle of Sodden Hill, she was more blood and thorns than perfume and petals. 

And so she had gone into hiding afterwards, had given herself time to heal her wounds and replenish her energy. She _was_ planning to throw herself back into searching for a child, no longer a cure, per se, a certain dragon’s words echoing in her ears, but rather a babe to adopt and raise as her own, maybe. Gods knew, there were enough people that abandoned their children and Yennefer’s heart ached at the thought of those poor souls, all alone and with no place to call home, no one to call family, only surrounded by a cruel world of hate and darkness, one that Yennefer had always been familiar with. But then Geralt of fucking Rivia found her. It had been a year or so since their last meeting and Yennefer would lie if she said she hadn’t missed him at all. But things had changed since then. The very air between them seemed different, no longer charged with lightning and fire, but rather understanding. Compassion, perhaps. 

But Geralt wasn’t alone either, when he came to her, when he apologised to her. It seemed he had finally decided to take responsibility and claimed his child surprise. It was quite a shock to discover that that very child was the last heir to the cintran throne, princess Cirilla, the target of half the nilfgaardian army.

So of course, when Geralt asked for her help to protect the girl and teach her how to control magic, she had accepted right away. Maybe Ciri could be her legacy, her everything. Yennefer started travelling with Geralt and his child surprise, afterwards, slowly distancing herself from an idealised version of an impossible future.

They went into hiding for a few months, listening to the rumours about the White Wolf hiding the Lion Cub of Cintra as they spread like a bloodstain upon white silk. Travelling and laying low wouldn’t do it anymore, not when both Geralt and Yennefer knew that Ciri needed a place to train for the winter, a home, something _stable_ in her life.

It was almost winter when they finally set their sights on Kaer Morhen.

* * *

The clouds that were already lazily drifting over the sky while they had been on the way now gather in dark swirls of inky black overhead. Yennefer clutches her fur coat closer to her frame, exhaling a puff of white smoke. It gets colder the closer they get to Kaer Morhen, she thinks, almost regretfully, imagining that the huge stone fortress isn’t necessarily going to be the warmest place, not really. But it’s nothing a spell can’t change. 

For now, though, she walks through the market, empty as it is of people at the moment. It is noon, but with the brewing storm, most have already taken refuge, however, there are still the stragglers and the ones who can’t go inside.

Yennefer shakes her head and keeps walking towards a shop with a sign depicting a lily hanging above the door. It doesn’t take her more than a couple of minutes to negotiate with the shopkeeper to sell her some rather expensive herbs for half the price. At least she’ll be back before the storm breaks, Yennefer thinks as she pockets the little bags and vials of dried leaves and the sort in her coat. She is a bit distracted thinking about the fact that she left Geralt to care for Ciri in the little camp they made just outside the town, what with Ciri excitedly claiming that Geralt was to teach her how to hunt while Yennefer was gone before she left to get extra potion ingredients.

And with her thoughts being elsewhere, Yennefer almost stumbles over the body that gets kicked at her feet just as she opens the door. Violet eyes widen as the ragged figure whimpers pitifully, their grey cape frayed around the edges and revealing the person’s bare legs and even more ragged pants. There are two men in front of the shop, a few paces away, one of which is breathing heavily, the other just looking over with a bored expression.

Yennefer narrows her gaze and, inside her pocket, her hand tightens around a small dagger, though she knows magic would be more effective if a fight were to break out in front of her, but she’s not really eager to unmask herself as a mage quite yet.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?”, she asks, tilting her chin out, lips smiling pleasantly, but coldly.

The man who, Yennefer assumes, kicked the person, just huffs and turns away to leave with shaking shoulders. The other responds with an even more bored tone than his face:

“Crazy beggar”, he nods at the lump on the ground, who hasn’t moved much since he was thrown at the hard stone, “Tried to steal from us.”

With that, the man leaves. Yennefer rolls her eyes. She is about to leave when the beggar grasps the seam of her fur coat with a trembling but unrelenting hand. She doesn’t have time for this! Yennefer gathers the coat’s material in one hand and tugs, but the person stumbles to his knees and uses his other hand to keep himself attached to Yennefer’s clothes.

“Please...”, it’s so quiet, Yennefer almost misses it. Her eyes soften for just a moment before she clenches her jaw and reaches for her coin purse. She tosses a few coppers at the beggar, but he still doesn’t let go.

At that, Yennefer slowly reaches a hand towards one of the beggar’s and is almost shocked at how cold his skin feels. Looking closer at his fingers, they do have a bluish tint. She shakes him off and looks down at him as he remains on his knees, head bowed.

“Take the coins. It’s enough to rent you a room at an inn until the storm passes”, she tries to speak as softly as she can, but Yennefer really needs to get going if she wants to make it back to Geralt and Ciri before it starts pouring down.

But then the beggar looks up and a shock travels through Yennefer, her body going tense and breath stuttering in her chest as violet meets azure blue. No way…

“Is it… Jaskier?”

Her voice is barely above a whisper, but the man’s face shows no recognition. It shows nothing if she’s honest, and Yennefer has never been fond of the bard, having seen him about one year ago and still remembering their petty banter, but worry grows in her chest. There are blotches of brown and green framing his face and dark circles under his eyes. There’s also a layer of grime covering his skin, but what she _can_ see through the filter of dirt is enough to worry her.

He doesn’t speak, just looks at her - no, Yennefer scrunches her nose and furrows her brows in a hard expression, he looks _through_ her, at a spot just above her shoulder, big blue eyes unfocused.

“What the hell _happened_ to you?”, she asks, not expecting an answer. Yennefer feels a few droplets of cold water hitting her face and a glance upwards confirms that, yes, the storm is just about to start, she needs to go _right now-_

With a short inhale and a decision made in her head, Yennefer brushes her dark locks over a shoulder and bends her knees to meet the beggar’s - _Jaskier’s_ \- gaze. He still doesn’t react, which just steels Yennefer as she snakes an arm around the bard’s shoulders. Former bard, Yennefer muses as she picks him up. She places Jaskier’s arm around her own shoulders and moves her own around his waist. She can feel just how thin he is and it nurtures her worry even more.

Yennefer never really got along with Jaskier, not before she and Geralt went through their breakup and surely not afterwards, as she hadn’t seen him since, no, but even she can tell that something is wrong, very wrong.

She remembers asking Geralt where his bard was when he came to her with his child surprise in toe and no bard clinging to him, but he never answered. Yennefer walks as fast as she can with an unresponsive Jaskier barely stumbling about the path out of the town even as she half drags him, half leads him on it.

No, Yennefer never got along with Jaskier, and she will probably claim that the decision to bring Jaskier back with her is one born of suspicion that surrounds the fact that Jaskier, in this abysmal state, managed to _find them_. She will say that it’s too much of a coincidence and they can’t afford to turn a blind eye, but right now? Right now, as Yennefer looks at him with a sideways glance and sees barely a shadow of the person Jaskier used to be, her heart lodges itself in her throat and panic bubbles just below the layer of confusion.

* * *

The rain falls like drops of mercury by the time Yennefer and Jaskier make it back to the camp. Geralt is outside, keeping guard and Ciri is probably in Yennefer’s tent. Roach is shielded under a rocky ledge, oats having been laid out for her to enjoy and a thick blanket resting on her back. The mare sees them first and bristles as she sees not one, but two figures approaching. Geralt notices them next.

“Yen?”, he calls, hand tightening into fists and Yennefer hurries their steps, but she thinks Jaskier has fainted midway through their short journey to camp, and while she holds great magical powers, physically, she is not quite as gifted. When they get closer, Yennefer sees Geralt’s eyes narrow and his nostrils flare. She thinks she sees a shadow pass over his face, but not even one second later, he is stomping towards them and picking Jaskier up, not even bothering to look at him properly.

The only clue Yennefer gets that Geralt recognised her ’companion’ is a harshly whispered, “How?”, and Yennefer just shakes her head with a sigh. They make their way towards the tent, which is glowing a muted orange in the dark atmosphere, almost like a lighthouse through the rain falling heavily around them.

When they enter, Yennefer doesn’t hesitate to drop her waterlogged cloak to the tent floor and quickly makes her way towards her desk, laying out all the newly bought herbs. Ciri rises to her feet, her smile at their return merging into something else, something tinged with fear as Geralt drops the grey bundle that is more cloth than human on the bed, what with how Jaskier swims in the fabric, the hood covering half his face.

“What happened? Is he hurt?”, Ciri question’s, panic in her voice. Her eyes move between Yennefer, who is looking through her notes looking for all of the healing potions and muscle relaxants she could prepare with her current supplies, Geralt, who seems frozen in place by the bed, expression unreadable as he looks at Jaskier and Jaksier himself, who looks so pale and so small that he, scarily enough, reminds Yennefer more of a corpse than a sick patient. She doesn’t let it get to her head.

“Found him in the market”, Yennefer says, tone flat and uninterested, but her hands are already busy throwing bits of dried leaves in glass vials and mixing them together with ease. Ciri finally settles on a chair next to the bed and frowns at Jaskier.

“I think I… I think I know him. He used to come and play for my birthday”, there’s something soft and pained in her voice, her eyes heavy with too much hurt for Yennefer’s liking.

Ciri reaches for his hand but hesitates.

“Why?”, Geralt asks.

He still hasn’t moved. A muscle twitches in his neck above the armour. The rain patters above them, hitting the tent roof.

“He’s hurt, Geralt. Something’s not right here”, she starts, glaring at the witcher with a heated look flaming behind walls of violet ice, and then, more softly, “You know I don’t believe in coincidences, but…”

Yennefer just gestures at Jaskier and the man in question lets out a small breath. All eyes are suddenly on him as he opens his eyes, mouth wide open to let out a croak. Yennefer thinks he might have wanted to scream, but only a weak sound comes out. Yennefer works faster.

“Ciri, help me cut these. Geralt, undress him”, she orders, shoulders tense. Ciri is right next to her a second later, clutching a silver knife and chopping up dried petals. _Geralt doesn’t fucking move_.

“Geralt!”, Yennefer snaps again, before turning back to her potions. She could try some healing spells, but the potions are safer.

Geralt seems to crumble at that, something eerily close to pain glowing through the gold, but Geralt heeds her order and moves, first taking of Jaskier’s cloak and, though Yennefer doesn’t have the same keen sense of smell Geralt does, she can still smell the scent of blood wafting through the air. 

Geralt’s jaw clenches so hard Yennefer thinks he would break his own teeth, were he anything less than a witcher. Ciri lets out a soft whimper, but Yennefer is almost ready. Still, she bumps their elbows together in silent comfort.

Next, Geralt strips Jaskier of his dirty tunic, so dark with mud that Yennefer almost misses the darker areas that she figures must be blood. Almost. Countless patches of dark skin and dried blood are highlighted by the warm glow of the fire burning in the centre of the enlarged tent, and Yennefer knows they’ll have to clean up the dark red patches before she’s able to asses him fully. She pats Ciri on the back, signalling that their work is finished and the girl all but flies to Geralt’s side, peeking fearfully at the still form of Jaskier. His eyes are wide open and his chest is rising and falling at a much quicker rate than Yennefer would like. Ciri chokes on a sob and Yennefer’s heart aches.

Jaskier’s trousers are taken off afterwards and they are in much the same state as his torso, though maybe slightly less muddy, less patched with dried blood. Yennefer takes note of the ripped skin around his wrists and ankles and hesitates to look at his neck to see the exact same markings.

”Who-”, Ciri tries to ask, but she slaps her palms over mouth as sobs shake her whole frame. Geralt wraps his arms around her and lets her hide her face in his chest, but his eyes don’t leave Jaskier. There’s fear in his eyes. 

Yennefer takes the vial she’s just prepared, along with a small tub of salve, an empty bowl and a piece of soft cloth.

Geralt throws her a glance and a silent conversation passes through their eyes. He leaves Ciri for a bit, grabbing the bowl from Yennefer and heading outside the tent. Yennefer makes a small gesture towards Ciri, spelling her asleep. She really doesn’t need to see this. After putting the supplies on the bed next to Jaskier, she leads an almost asleep Ciri next to the other bed. Geralt returns with the bowl, now filled with clean water.

The two set to work in silence. Yennefer grabs the cloth, wetting it, and starts cleaning Jaskier. Yennefer figures that Geralt doesn’t think she notices that he grabs Jaskier’s hand as he closes his blue eyes again, breath hitching around whimpers as Yennefer wipes at the cuts and bruises littering his torso. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. Some blood patches turn out to be much worse than just the result of open wounds. They are darker than the rest of the bruises on his body, not quite as faded and yellowish, and Yennefer thinks they might be more recent. It makes her question just what happened to Jaskier, as _these_ bruises seem too new compared to everything else, yet they seem to belong together. Internal bleeding is not her area of expertise though, so she keeps wiping the dirt and blood away as slowly as possible. Yennefer has never been interested in medicinal magic, but she knows a thing or two, especially after having to experiment on herself with patch-up work after Sodden. Yennefer knows that the bruises on Jaskier’s torso are from internal bleeding that _still hasn't stopped_ , despite her limited knowledge. Shit.

“Tortured, probably”, Yennefer answers Geralt’s questioning gaze, the one she can see floating in his thoughts through his eyes, and he squeezes Jaskier’s hand with two of his own. It looks incredibly small, almost frail in Geralt’s hands.

“Who would have… He’s just a human. A bard”, his voice seems as toneless as ever, but Yennefer picks up a tension. He’s trying to hide how much this affects him. Just how _did_ Geralt and Jaskier end up separated, anyways? Gods, Yennefer wouldn’t be surprised if it was some stupid heroic bullshit type of reason that Geralt always uses.

“Not just a bard”, Yennefer sighs and moves on to Jaskier’s thighs. There’s a lot more blood on the inner thighs. All at once, she knows that she will need to do a much more thorough investigation. Something sick and disgusting curls up in her stomach. Yennefer takes the cloth away and wrings the water out of it before raising a thigh. A small voice whispers that the obnoxious bard that she used to know would be mortified to find himself naked and under Yennefer’s scrutiny, but as it stands, Jaskier has his eyes clenched shut and is twitching every so often. He’s still so cold…

“No, not _just_ a bard. _Your_ bard”, Yennefer lifts the man’s thighs but stops for a moment as that seems to cause too much jostling of his injuries, _or something else makes him shake when she tries to touch him there_. “Keep him still”, she instructs Geralt as she continues and wipes the blood between his thighs, cleaning some small cuts, burns and what she thinks might be bootmarks.

Geralt does as told, moving to hold Jaskier’s shaking shoulders between his hands and rubbing small circles into them, but frowns, slightly.

“He’s… It’s not like… He’s not my bard”, there’s a hint of bitterness mixed with the anger and hurt, but Yennefer thinks, if she peers close enough, she might also see guilt.

“But that’s a matter to be settled between you two. As for the rest of the world, he followed you around for twenty years, Geralt. In their eyes, he's yours as long as he sings your songs”, Yennefer sets his legs back down with uncharacteristic gentleness. Suddenly, she’s all too aware that they will need a better healer. She moves onto his arms all the same. Geralt moves back to stand at Jaskier’s side.

“If anyone wanted to get to you...”

“They’d use him for that”, Geralt murmurs and now the blame he is probably in his head stubbornly pointing at himself is obvious in his voice. Yennefer glances at Ciri for just a second, but Geralt catches the movement.

“Nilfgaard?”, Geralt asks, but they both know the answer.

“Nilfgaard”, Yennefer replies all the same.

It takes Yennefer only a few more minutes to finish cleaning him up and then Geralt is dressing him up in an old tunic of his, tying the laces at the neck tightly, though the material still hangs below bruised collarbones. _He is so thin..._ Jaskier doesn’t stir and Yennefer thinks, _hopes_ , he’s fallen asleep.

She and Geralt stand between the two beds, looking at Ciri who sleeps like the weight of the world rests on her shoulders and at Jaskier, who looks like he’s _this_ close to being picked up by a strong enough gust of wind. It is a terrifying image. Yennefer moves to pour the potion between Jaskier’s parted lips and Geralt empties the bowl of surprisingly pink water outside. When he returns, he looks his age, hundreds of years old, eyes too tired and scars too obvious on his otherwise stunning face. Yennefer starts setting her desk in order.

“The potion will keep him asleep. But Geralt...”, Yennefer has a hand on his arm and her eyes are a bit wild, a bit terrified, as she speaks, “This, I can’t heal. Not fully. Not correctly."

“We’ll search for a healer”, he says, almost instantly.

“No, we have to make sure Ciri is safe, we have to continue-”, Yennefer shakes her head, but Geralt is already speaking again, eyes hardened with his own decision. Damn stubborn fool, Yennefer thinks, almost fondly.

“We’ll pass by a few more towns on the way. This whole thing...”

And Yennefer knows what he wants to say.

“It’s not your fault, Geralt”, there’s a certainty to her voice, but then she sees Geralt’s eyes darken and sees the sorrow on his face.

“I chased him away, Yen. And he’s here. And he’s hurt. Because of me”, Geralt grits his teeth as he speaks, whispering roughly, though they both know neither Ciri nor Jaskier will wake up any time soon. And when Geralt turns to face her, there’s a twinge in her heart as she sees tears.

“Nilfgaard doesn’t leave witnesses, nor survivors.”

Yennefer knows this already. 

“They hurt him, but he escaped. Somehow. And he found you again”, Yennefer whispers softly as Geralt collapses on his knees next to Jaskier’s bed. His pale hand twitches and Geralt takes hold of it once more. 

This whole situation feels wrong, she doesn’t say. Taking him in is a risk, she doesn’t say either. Yennefer just reluctantly watches as the witcher is wrought by pain.

“We will figure out what happened and how to help him after he wakes up Geralt”, she does say.

If Jaskier wakes up, Yennefer doesn’t say.


	2. Jaskier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then they broke Jaskier's lute over his own head and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter consists of flashbacks and what Jaskier went through while in captivity! Heed the warnings and tags, please.

Jaskier had taken to not staying in the same place for longer than a fortnight at most and only travelling during daytime. He wasn’t yet afraid, to be honest, but he had a bad feeling when he thought he heard footsteps behind him. By the time they found him, he was soothing his heart with ale and women and men and the most obnoxious songs he could think up on the spot, for the most part.

But when they _found_ him, a total of seven men dressed in black armour, he knew that something was wrong. Very wrong. All the caution he’d exercised up to that point had proven useless when he found himself face to face with the crème de la crème of the nilfgaardian forces standing in the middle of his room at an inn in the south. The dagger Jaskier kept hidden in his sleeve would likely serve more purpose as a toothpick than a serious weapon to these highly trained soldiers, especially in his trembling hands.

But Jaskier fought with everything he had, anyways. He was alone now, no longer under the protection of a scary witcher, but that didn’t mean he’d go down willingly. No, not Jaskier.

Then they broke Jaskier’s lute over his own head and everything went dark.

* * *

When Jaskier opens his eyes, it is with a groan and a dull ache at the base of his skull. He thinks he still feels the bits of wood stuck in his hair, courtesy of his poor lute. But honestly, that’s not the most worrying thing, his brain warns him, but Jaskier tends to, well, he avoids the obvious as much as he can, especially when the obvious stares him in the face with dull grey eyes above a sharp nose and cruelly smiling lips. He keeps his eyes barely open until the man in front of him exhales sharply and takes a step to the right of Jaskier. And that means he’s put as much distance between himself and Jaskier as possible, seeing as the chamber is quite small and Jaskier cannot move to the opposite end, is chained to its centre by the neck. Oh, Melitele save him.

“Did you want a private concert? My, well all _you_ had to do was ask!”, he says, cheerfully, but Jaskier knows it sounds far too scared to be taken as a jest. The man in front of him sees it for what it is: A shield of wit to hide behind. The punch that follows is the spear that breaks through that shield. It forces Jaskier to look, to _really_ look at what is going on around him.

“I don’t believe you are stupid”, the man says.

Jaskier looks around the room. He is dressed down to his small clothes and though it is a small, cubic sort of room, Jaskier figures it’s deep underground and the stone doesn’t necessarily lend him any more warmth. He shivers where he is chained, the harshness of the collar a good enough reason to try and keep his breathing as normal as possible 

“Hopeful, are you?”, he asks and that earns him another punch, and this time, with an additional slap, as reward.

“I don’t believe you are stupid - but you make a lot of stupid choices”, the man reiterates and Jaskier just rolls his eyes. He can already taste blood, but that’s okay. 

“Well, aren’t you wise”, it is said mockingly, but the man looks at him sharply and Jaskier would bite his tongue had he not already done so previously, hence, the blood.

“You know why you’re here”, the man wraps the chain that is clasped to the heavy metal collar around Jaskier’s neck around one hand, the very chain that keeps Jaskier kneeling even though his back aches. The chain is too short to sit up straight and is even more restraining now, "Where is your White Wolf?”

Jaskier just raises an eyebrow at that and the chain gets tugged, nearly suffocating him.

But it only lasts a second and Jaskier wheezes out a “Who’s asking” before it happens again, and again when he doesn’t answer. Jaskier finally raises his hands in defeat before the man has a chance to strip his throat of skin, or at least, attempts to, but Jaskier notes bitterly that his hands are also chained, a slightly thinner chord of metal loops connecting his wrists to his collar. And ankles. Fuck, they really want to see him kneel, huh?

But the man sees the attempted movement, or maybe he sees how Jaskier is starting to turn a little purple around the edges and a lot dizzy, all things considered, but he stops and waits for a second.

“Look, I think - and just listen to me on this, no choking, please - that you have gotten the wrong idea about my relationship to the famed Geralt of Rivia-”

“Have I?”, the man asks with a dark look, “Are you not the bard that composed all of his ballads? Who people have seen trailing after him for two decades?”

And the  _ confidence _ with which he says all this is almost infuriating. The man continues, heedless of the flat look Jaskier shoots his way.

“I think I have  _ just _ the right idea. You, little bard, are the quickest way to get the wolf out of his hiding”, the tone is sinister, and Jaskier feels genuine fear, not just panic at waking up in a stone cell, not just the shock of realising he’s been kidnapped, no, it is  _ actual _ fear. He doesn’t think Geralt will come for him. Jaskier remembers the mountain, remembers listening to the rumours of the White Wolf being in town and  _ fleeing _ , so as to not disturb his _bl_ _essing_ , but  _ if he does _ -

_ If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands! _

Jaskier loathes to even consider that Geralt might be in danger because of him, because despite everything, he  _ loves _ the man and he cannot bring another steaming pile of shit on his head like that, not again, Jaskier can’t be responsible for Geralt putting himself and his child surprise in danger, he  _ can’t- _

Slowly, Jaskier makes a choice. Because by the sounds of it, they hadn’t been able to find Geralt on their own, these nilfgaardian assholes.

“And if he won’t come willingly, then you’ll lead us to his lair.”

The man smiles and it’s a wide, terrifying thing that has Jaskier swallowing fruitlessly around the lump in his throat. There’s a single candle in the room, held in a scone next to a small, metal door. It flickers and Jaskier blames the chill that goes down his spine on its inability to provide sufficient warmth. The man let’s go of his chain and grabs Jaskier’s face between thumb and forefinger roughly.

“Speak and you’ll live”, he says before pushing Jaskier’s face into the stone floor. It’s slightly damp, Jaskier thinks. Probably another facilitator of hypothermia.

Jaskier won’t say a word.

* * *

A man spitting out blood would either be a worrying sight for someone who saw Jaskier or a scary sight for those who knew him. He wouldn’t take a punch lying down unless he wanted to, unless it was warranted and that’s just how he is. But bound as he is and panting harshly, it is of little consequence how much they kick him in the chest. He can’t  _ really _ fight back. 

But Jaskier can annoy the everloving shit out of them.

There are two soldiers dressed in black armour in his cell now, were sent to bring him some piece of rock Jaskier thinks they call bread and a cup of water, which tastes suspiciously like rust.

“What a pitiful sight you lot make - beating a bound man! Did your mothers never teach you any better?!”, Jaskier clicks his tongue for effect, “What is this world coming to, really.”

“Bound man, soon to be dead man”, one of them growls and kicks him again. Jaskier thinks that the creaking sound his ribs make as a boot hits home should be disconcerting, but Jaskier has already gone a bit numb, so he just grunts and spits at the boot that hit him.

The soldier looks at him with disgust and clenches his fists before storming out.

“Do you not  _ know  _ to shut your damn mouth?”, the remaining soldier asks and Jaskier grins at him. His split lip hurts because of it, but alas. This soldier leaves too and as soon as he hears the door being bolted shut, he jumps, as much as his chains will allow him, at the water cup laid out before him, doing his best to grasp at it with his teeth and tilt his head.

A desperate Jaskier is not a Jaskier the nilfgaardians will get to see, he decides pretty early on in his captivity, in the first few days, he thinks, but Jaskier always had a hard time telling the time even with the position of the sun above his head. Now he just assumes that his body still remembers to get tired at night. But, gods, he’s tired all the time, lately. It could have been weeks.

Cahir, the man that talked to him when he first woke up, a general or something, Jaskier doesn’t care to remember, hasn’t visited again afterwards. From the faded conversations he’s managed to listen in on happening outside his cell, Jaskier concludes that he is fighting some sort of battle - but he and his mage will come back soon. That is a bit alarming to Jaskier, given his, ah, _history_ with mages. 

Maybe that's not the only thing that should worry Jaskier, but after being beaten within an inch of his life and then left in the dark for days to lick at his wounds, metaphorically, of course, seeing as the chains haven’t been taken off at all, he feels somewhat nonchalant.

Reckless, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, it’s left you reckless.  _ Preserve yourself. Speak _ .

But he doesn’t. He looks the soldiers who come in to interrogate him in the eye, one always carrying a notebook and the other armed with his bare hands, or on days that Jaskier is particularly unfortunate, some other device to spice things up, and he hisses at them. Jaskier lets them break his fingers, one by one, without a sound, then bites his lips until they bleed when they squeeze his hands. He lets them kick him in the chest, let’s them punch him and slap him around, because he is stubborn. Jaskier hurts, hurts so damn much, but he wears the pain like a crown of victory set in wire, proudly. It means he hasn’t broken yet. Jaskier smiles a bit wildly at the stone floor. 

He’s losing it, slowly, getting used to the constant pain, Jaskier is sure of that much. Jaskier bends as much as he can, ribs protesting, and grabs a bite from the bread. 

Honestly, he muses between bites, it’s the days when they leave him alone that haunt him the most. He always recalls the last ‘interrogation’ in his head when, seemingly, days pass, and no soldiers visit him, thinking hard on if he gave away any information, because he would be discarded once he speaks, Jaskier is sure of that much. And if Jaskier speaks…

“What a terrible, terrible situation, really”, Jaskier whispers to himself, stomach still rumbling, but his metal cup and plate are empty, “Waste of everyone’s time...”

Jaskier closes his eyes, because even his lids ache form the cold, and he thinks he drifts off for a bit. Either he naps until the door opens violently, or he is basically lost to the world for a few hours, but when the door  _ does _ open, he blinks slowly and breathes in deeply.

“Another round, boys? I must say, you lot are quite insatiable-”

Jaskier doesn’t get to finish his sentence as a knife gets stabbed into his left shoulder. For a moment, the world is silent and still, in Jaskier’s mind. He looks at the knife with wide eyes, only half aware of the grey eyes looking down at him furiously.

Then pain, a vicious, all-consuming, all-encompassing pain grips him like a fire being set loose on a dry field. Jaskier screams then.

“I heard you haven’t been behaving while I was gone, little bard”, Cahir speaks, voice dangerously low.

Jaskier wants to yell out a “well,  _ duh! _ ”, but his mind barely processes what is being said alongside with delivering the pain into all of his nerves like some sort of poison, it cannot possibly also come up with a command directed at his voice for an answer.

“But don’t worry, I know just how to make you  _ sing _ ”, Cahir turns on his heel and the door closes behind him just as loudly as it had opened.

Jaskier thinks he might be going a little cross-eyed as he stares at the knife sticking out of his shoulder. He feels clammy and cold and is in so much  _ pain  _ that he thinks his body might be going into shock. Not a very good thing, not really. He writhes on his knees.

I won’t speak, I  _ won’t, _ is the last thing Jaskier thinks before the black spots in his vision take over.

* * *

Jaskier feels as though  _ months  _ have passed since he was taken, though he knows, realistically, that it’s probably barely been weeks. He is standing in the middle of his cell, curled around himself and he feels sticky from all the dirt and sweat covering his skin. It’s  _ everywhere. _

After Cahir’s return and his consequent gift, all of his wounds are inspected and cleaned up, so as to not damage him beyond repair. There’s dirty gauze wrapped around his shoulder right now, but at least he hasn’t started bleeding again from a reopened wound. He thinks. Hard to tell when your body goes completely numbs.

He’s stopped speaking out loud when the beatings got worse,  _ far worse _ , but something keeps Jaskier’s head up whenever Cahir leaves the room in an angry swirl of dark armour after getting nothing out of him other than a pained moan or two. Jaskier thinks it might have once been pride, but it feels more like habit, now.

Jaskier thinks that if he ever gets out of this place, he’ll have a great many more scars than even Geralt, and the thought has him laughing out loud, throat raw after making no sound in so long. Oh, Geralt, his stupid, lovely witcher. Jaskier hopes that wherever he and his child surprise are alright, he  _ hopes _ and he  _ wishes _ with all his might that they are safe and warm somewhere Nilfgaard can't find them.

Jaskier earlier giggles turn into whimpers as his skin, sensitive from cuts and burns, rubs onto the wet floor.

He won’t get out, Jaskier realises as he cries, all alone, his voice bouncing off the thick walls in his small cell.

Jaskier falls asleep to the thought of Geralt, to a half-forgotten memory of the witcher smiling, probably looking at a Jaskier who’d just stumbled and gotten intimately acquainted with the dirt on the path and when he wakes up again, it’s to a candle being pressed into his thigh.

_ If life could give me one blessing… _

Jaskier screams, but says nothing. They will amp up their tactics soon and Jaskier knows he won’t survive through harsher methods of interrogation, but he still thinks about Geralt. Had he been offered the choice, Jaskier would have liked to see him one more time before dying, but as it stands, he looks at Cahir’s face sometimes, full of violence, and at a random soldier’s face, when the man is not available and nothing more.

But Jaskier doesn’t start trying to escape, not really, not seriously, not  _ desperately _ , until they start  _ touching _ him. It’s a different sort of pain. It burrows itself into his mind and remains there, even after the soldiers leave, and it makes him scream when he’s all alone because he _still_ feels them.

* * *

The first time it happens, Cahir is angry again, but when is he not? Jaskier struggles to remain upright, one eye swollen shut and fingers gone completely numb.

“Why not save yourself, little bard?”, Cahir is standing in front of him, but Jaskier can’t muster the strength to look up, he just needs a few more moments - one more eternity - to put himself back together, to gather his thoughts. Cahir’s voice is quiet, anger simmering below a fake veneer of gentleness and the hand that punched him so passionately moments ago starts caressing his cheek. Jaskier flinches, but that just makes his shoulders hurt. He will have matching scars there, another knife having been stabbed into his other shoulder when Jaskier had gone unconscious as a means to rouse him with, who’d have guessed it, more pain.

“Talk, and you’ll fly freely again. Sing for me. Sing for the empire”, Cahir’s grip tightens, but is still bearable compared to, well… Everything else.

Jaskier keeps his mouth shut.

Cahir retracts his hand and makes no further inquiry. 

“Shame, you have  _ such _ a pretty face, had such a pretty voice...”, Jaskier scoffs and looks to the side as Cahir walks to the door. “But maybe it doesn’t have to go to complete waste”, he muses out loud and Jaskier tenses up as a murmur of agreement comes as reply from the soldiers who are, presumably, guarding his cell.

The struggle to actually lift his head feels monumental, but Jaskier does and wishes he never did. Cahir is throwing him one last look, grey eyes molten steel that  _ burns _ his skin with its intensity, before leaving, but the door doesn’t close. The guard-soldiers, three of them, step inside instead.

The sound of armour buckles being undone echoes through the cell.

* * *

After, they leave Jaskier still on his knees and chest, gaze blank and more bruises blooming on his pale skin.

Jaskier will die here, he knows that now, because he still refuses to speak, even as tears flow down his face and he turns to his side, uncaring for the pool of his own blood under him.

Jaskier will die here  _ alone _ , but the thought that they won’t find Geralt because of it lends him some peace as his numb body shivers on the cold, sticky stone floor. 

But then Jaskier eyes his own wrists and notes, in his head, how much easier friction becomes once blood and other fluids are involved. And suddenly, Jaskier’s cold heart beats faster for just a moment, something he thought he’d never feel again, blooming inside his chest.

Maybe he’ll live to see his wounds become scars, but for now, Jaskier falls into an uneasy slumber.


	3. Ciri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He returns with scratches on his face, splatters of blood on his gloves and a thrashing bard held over his shoulders. Yennefer glares at them, but Ciri just stares in disbelief as Jaskier tries to punch Geralt and hisses at him, eyes wild and his whole body tense as a bow string.

Sometimes, the screams echoed in her head when she tried to sleep. Sometimes, the fire and the blood combined into nightmarish visions behind her closed eyelids when she laid her head on the pillows. But worst of all were the moments when panic would grip her out of nowhere and made her stop, made her live through that hell all over again. Nights, when she didn’t wake up screaming, were rare, but in a way, remembering soothed her. It _had_ happened, it was _real._ No one could blame Ciri for hoping that that fall of Cintra had been just a bad dream, but Ciri needed to think about what was in front of her or she’d succumb. To the fear, to the chaos, to the _world_.

Thankfully, though, she wasn’t a girl fighting against the world on her own anymore, no, she had people by her side now. She had a scary witcher watching over her and a sorceress teaching her how to control her powers. It was more than Ciri had dared hope for after running for her life, more than she thought she’d find. It was… Peaceful.

Ciri thought, from time to time, that it is cruel that she had to learn to appreciate the calm rather than an adventure, rather than the excitement of childish dangers when she herself was still a child.

But alas, one can’t change what happens around them, only how they deal with it, how they use the emotions the world stirs up inside them.

And there is happiness in peace, too. A gentle thrill of joy in the quiet mornings when Ciri trails behind Geralt as he hunts for some small animal and then shows her what berries will kill a man twice her size and which ones would make for a good antiseptic, or in the calm evenings when Yennefer speaks to her softly about elixirs and poisons and cures and Ciri writes everything down in a leather-bound notebook

And, suddenly, the world doesn’t seem quite so dark anymore.

* * *

It is still dark when Ciri wakes up, green eyes slowly focusing on the tent roof above her and body stirring. Yennefer had probably put her to sleep before treating the man she’d found - a bard, _Jaskier,_ she remembers. She sighs. It was always a bit odd when she did that, but it usually resulted in dreamless bouts of sleep, though, as the mage herself had said, if used too often, it would prove harder and harder to take effect and create an addiction.

Ciri lifts her frame off of the bed, swaying for only a second before she gains her balance. There are three beds in the magically enlarged tent, all of them surrounding a small fire pit at the centre and with Yennefer’s desk of to the side, in the back. Yennefer is laying in one of them, furs pulled up to cover half her face and a hand beneath her pillow. Ciri knows that she holds another one of her small daggers beneath her pillows and tenses up. Are they in some sort of danger? Well, when aren’t they, _Nilfgaard is looking for her_ , but why the heightened alertness now? The only thing that’s changed since yesterday night, when Yennefer had fallen asleep on her back, sleeping calmly, albeit lightly, as she tends to do, is-

All at once, Ciri’s eyes slip towards the other bed, the only one left and sees yellow eyes staring at her. 

Geralt nods her way and she attempts a smile, but it is dampened as her gaze turns away from the chair Geralt is currently occupying and lingers on the bundle on the remaining bed. 

Jaskier, the bard, is sleeping there, face now clean of dirt and bruises accentuated all the more for it, dressed in a soft tunic and with more blankets covering him than Ciri was aware they carried with them.

Trying to keep her feet as light as possible, she steps towards them. Geralt is holding the man’s hand in two of his own and looks back down at him. Ciri stops at his side and her mouth twists as she looks at Jaskier.

“Will he be alright?”, she whispers, softly, barely hearing herself speak. But Geralt has a very sharp sense of hearing. He just nods, but it is a small, unsure action. Ciri frowns a little, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

“Who would do such a thing to another person…?”, Ciri asks, but her voice isn’t as incredulous as it could be, as it perhaps should be. She’s seen worse things happening to the people around her. She’d heard about worse things happening during her escape. And yet, it still shakes her to her core, because this looks so… Organised. The bruises and cuts on his face and the ones she can see peeking above the shirt’s still loose collar and on his hands between Geralt’s fingers don’t look like the result of careless violence. No, instead, Ciri feels a shiver run down her spine, they look a bit more purposeful, a bit _too_ planned out.

This doesn’t look like the violence resulted from a slaughter or from an ambush attack. This looks like torture.

“Why him?”

And her voice breaks when she voices this question as more of a plea for _something_. Because it’s not fair. She can remember Jaskier, still, a colourfully dressed man showing up for her birthday every year and starting fights with other lords and singing ridiculous songs and irritating her grandmother, to her grandfather’s delight and-

And he used to smile so brightly and he had such a pretty voice and-

And people have always fussed over Ciri, for as long as she can remember. The bard was no exception, but it was different, somehow. _All these songs, princess, and yet no dancers. For shame!_ , he’d say, instead of asking her if she was feeling alright during a ball, and _What songs would the mighty and frightening Lion Cub of Cintra wish to request from a mere humble bard?_ , Jaskier would ask, before launching into her favourite songs, despite her not having time to reply, instead of awaiting an order with bated breath.

She didn’t see him often, but he always brought such joy with him, and for a child bound to become a queen one day, not many would dare attempt what he did. Her grandmother only ever allowed it reluctantly.

But right now, Ciri was looking at his sleeping face and though it showed no expression, there was a sense of unease about him, even though Jaskier had, probably, magically, been put to sleep. 

Geralt squeezes Jaskier’s hand softly and Ciri has to wonder what their relationship is and why he never mentioned him before, even if it was common knowledge that Jaskier and Geralt had travelled together for a long time even before Ciri was born.

“We could guess. He’ll wake up and tell us, regardless”, he murmurs and Ciri thinks he sounds very tired, all of a sudden, even if witchers are known for being able to survive with much less sleep than regular humans.

Geralt then turns his head towards her and removes one of the hands from the hold he has on Jaskier to ruffle her hair. She still feels a bit sad looking at the bard, but at least, now that he’s here, has found them somehow, is with people who care about him, he’ll be fine.

“Go back to sleep, it’s still dark outside”, Geralt gives her a trace of a smile and she nods, sighing softly. This is truly heartbreaking, the way Geralt seems so… Distraught.

But Jaskier will be fine, because he’s with them. 

Right?

* * *

Jaskier wasn't fine, she catches herself thinking the next morning when she awakes to find that Geralt and Jaskier gone and Yennefer rousing her by tapping a finger on her cheek. Ciri startles, seeing as Yennefer looks a bit panicked.

“Wake up, sweetheart”, she says, softly, but urgently. Ciri jumps from her bed when she notices Jaskier’s empty bed and the chair beside it, no Geralt in sight.

“Where are-”, but she doesn’t get to finish as Yennefer pulls her to her feet and drags her outside the tent.

“We have to leave.”

Ciri is looking at the camp, a bit bewildered. Everything has been cleaned up and Roach is already untied, scrambling the uneven ground with her hooves in visible distress. Geralt and Jaskier aren’t here either. Behind her, Yennefer is folding the tent and everything inside it with her magic as quickly as she can.

With the urge to stomp her foot like a petulant child under control, Ciri simply asks, nervousness seeping into her words:

“What is going on, Yennefer? And where are Geralt and Jaskier? Did… Did something happen to them?”

Her eyes go wide as the realisation that something could have happened, most likely happened, _like another ambush in the middle of the night_ , and that the two might be hurt right now, and gods, how did she _sleep_ through that?! How did she-

Tent in a neat roll at their feet, Yennefer straps it up on Roach and then her hands are on Ciri’s shoulders, her beautiful eyes determined.

“I’ll explain, but we need to go!”

Yennefer doesn’t waste time in climbing Roach and then pulling Ciri in front of her. Ciri doesn’t have time to complain or ask why they're not portaling away, but Yennefer often tells her that Sodden has left her weakened and it'll take longer than a few months to actually regain all her strength back, so she sits silently in the saddle as Yennefer leads the mare in a gallop through the woods and back onto the path going alongside the town and heading to Kaer Morhen. But Geralt and Jaskier, the latter of which they’d found _injured_ and _alone_ , aren’t with them and worry picks at Ciri’s emotions. Her teeth have dug bleeding wounds through her lip as she holds herself from screaming and unleashing Chaos.

Because she trusts Yennefer and doesn’t want to harm her, but _something isn’t right_ and she and Yennefer are just riding away! 

But Ciri controls herself. The sky is still dark, highlighting the lit-up windows of the town they’re moving past as quickly as Roach can carry them and thunder rumbles behind them.

They ride like that for about two hours before they reach a small, seemingly abandoned farmhouse.

Yennefer pulls them inside the small stone building that’s being slowly eaten alive by vines and a tree growing right through the middle, breaking through the roof, and it definitely looks even smaller with two people and a horse cramped inside the living room. It is just a bit too ridiculous, but then Yennefer pulls up some protective wards that are so strong that Ciri’s teeth rattle as Yennefer casts the spell and the worry is back inside Ciri’s chest.

Then Yennefer collapses on the small, dusty couch and slings her arm over her eyes, panting with the exertion of the spell.

“Jaskier is being tracked. Geralt is dealing with it. They’ll come here as soon as they can”, is all she says and Ciri stares at her with wide, green eyes before she goes to Roach and hugs her neck, head swimming with what Yennefer’s words actually mean.

Did Jaskier _betray_ them?

And suddenly, there’s something akin to fury slowly encroaching on the fear, because _no, he wouldn’t do that, it must be something else, right?_

But Ciri doesn’t know what to believe for now, so she sighs into Roach’s coat. 

* * *

It isn’t until the sun has already set and the wind gets so strong that its wheezing through all of the orifices of the little stone house sounds like screams in the night that Geralt returns. 

He returns with scratches on his face, splatters of blood on his gloves and a thrashing bard held over his shoulders. Yennefer glares at them, but Ciri just stares in disbelief as Jaskier tries to punch Geralt and _hisses_ at him, eyes wild and his whole body tense as a bow string.

Oh, and Jaskier is naked underneath Geralt’s cape, which he draped over the bard. 

It's all so, _so_ weird, but Ciri is just relieved to see them in one piece. Yennefer, not so much.

“A word?”, Yennefer asks between gritted teeth and rises to her full height. Geralt just grunts and tightens his hold on Jaskier. 

“Now?”, Geralt asks her, looking even more tired than last night, when he was standing next to an unconscious Jaskier, “Ciri. Get the rope out of the grey pack.”

Ciri does so immediately, eyes flickering back to Jaskier, who stays still for exactly one moment, before continuing his distressed fight, acting like a _cornered_ animal, Ciri realises.

While she rummages through the pack, Ciri can hear Geralt and Yennefer’s hushed argument, but seeing as she doesn’t have superhuman hearing, nor magical abilities that allow her enough precision to boost her own, she only catches a few words.

“Danger”, ”Can’t risk”, ”A tool”, says Yennefer, arms gesturing wildly as Jaskier lets out a yowl and struggles even harder than before, breathing heavily. Ciri thinks she catches a glimpse of blood slipping between his lips out of the corner of her eyes. 

“Choice”, “Hurt”, “Healer”, responds Geralt, face stern and the blood on his gloves glistening in the low light of a floating ball of blue fire Yennefer had spelled in the middle of the room when it got too dark to see, _not his own blood,_ realises Ciri when it hits her that, if Jaskier was this restless the whole way back to them, he must have reopened some wounds and Geralt, trying to keep him still, would have smudged blood onto his leather gloves.

“Geralt. Yennefer”, she addresses them, the rope held tightly in one white-knuckled fist, turning towards them, her other hand patting Roach, who is now standing down on her haunches, puffing out hot breaths at the four of them.

They both turn towards her and Geralt changes his grip on Jaskier, holding him over one shoulder with a hand around his middle and Ciri catches a glimpse of an almost black bruise spreading over Jaskier’s chest beneath the cape. Ciri tosses Geralt the rope, who manages to bind Jaskier’s hands at the wrist, looking pained to do so, though it’s probably not because Jaskier had been hitting him in the chest as hard as he could while he had the chance, keening like a dog whose tail had been stepped over. Ciri winces as the ropes seem slimmer than the half-healed wounds already there.

“No! You can’t- **Stop!** ”

The scream, probably a response the restriction of his hand, that is ripped out of Jaskier is pitiful and Ciri can feel her eyes welling with tears. Whether they’re sad or angry, she’s not sure yet. It’s the first time in so long that he’s heard him say anything, the first time he spoke since Yennefer brought him back with her and it is a ragged little thing, his voice, just like his body: raw and torn and bloody.

There’s rope left and Geralt eyes the room and seemingly settles on the couch in his assessment. He takes Jaskier there and uses the rope to restrain his whole body, keeping the rope tight enough so Jaskier can't struggle free, but loose enough that he won't hurt himself, before raising himself shakily as Jaskier stops struggling, eyes going blank again. 

“Tell me what happened.”

It’s not a question, it’s not a plea and it’s not a suggestion.

It is a command given by someone who has the blood of a queen flowing through her veins. Maybe the effect is slightly softened by her tearful eyes, but it’s more than enough to make Geralt hum and then remove his gloves, as though even the sight of them burns him. Probably the blood, _Jaskier's_ blood, Ciri muses.

Ciri steps towards him and lays a hand on his shoulder. The look in his golden eyes is forlorn and the corners of his mouth are downturned.

“He woke up early in the morning”, Yennefer starts, already searching the bags on Roach before detaching them completely and laying a blanket over her as well, then throwing the rest on top of Jaskier, “And he started acting violently. He didn’t seem to recognise either me or Geralt, nor did he seem particularly willing to answer any of our questions.”

“That doesn’t seem like him, though...”, Ciri offers weakly.

“No. No, it doesn’t. He then ran away into the surrounding woods and-”

Yennefer doesn’t continue, frowning, and by now, Ciri knows what that means. She’s trying to come up with a simple explanation for a complex issue.

“He has tracking spell on him and managed to activate it”, she says, finally. Geralt huffs.

“Unintentionally”, Geralt growls at her and they fight silently once more, leaving Ciri to wonder if Yennefer is _actually_ communicating with Geralt telepathically because, well, _magic_.

“And if it was unintentional, _Geralt_ , do you think he can control it?!”, Yennefer snaps and tilts her chin, eyes flaming purple.

Geralt turns his head to the side and his gaze lands on Jaskier, the anger simmering there softening.

“I can’t leave him again, Yen…”, is his only reply and it sounds incredibly solemn.

Ciri just keeps looking between the two of them, slowly raising her eyebrows higher and pouting.

“How exactly did he… You know… Activate the spell? How does it work?”, Ciri has her hands on her hips and is looking at adults that don’t really act like adults right now, all angry tempers and no communication, the two of them.

Yennefer sighs and rubs her temples. It is Geralt that speaks:

“A flare. He launched a flare.”

Ciri looks at him with shock written clearly on her face.

“Just like Sodden...”, Ciri is close enough to hear Yennefer mumble.

This time, both Geralt and Ciri look to her for an explanation and she closes her eyes, the green eyeshadow glinting in the blue light. All of a sudden, she looks a bit older than she usually does, the eerie blue rays deepening her pained frown.

“Nilfgaard sends a flare before attacking. Or multiple ones, those bastards”, she curses softly under her breath and Ciri would go to hug her, to comfort her, were it not for her curiosity. She stays in place for now.

“But it’s different too. The flares they used at Sodden Hill, the ones they use in battle, generally, _burn_. They burn whatever they catch and explode through most non-magic walls and they use the caster right up”, Yennefer nods towards Jaskier, who’s eyes are directed at the floor, wide and blue and uncomprehending, if still a bit hurt, “His was just light as far as I can tell, but it went high. And it didn’t, obviously, burn him up. But the bleeding...”

At once, the bruising on his chest, the dark spot Ciri only caught a glimpse of earlier, makes sense. _Internal bleeding_. That cannot be good.

“Something must have triggered him, else, he would have sent one up as soon as I made it back to you two”, she finishes and spells a chair out of thin air to sit on and keep her forehead in her palm.

“And if something triggered it, it can be controlled. Removed. Whatever”, Geralt insists. A heavy silence follows, for a minute or two as all three of them process the information and Jaskier rolls himself onto the floor, unable to do anything more than wiggle, restrained by both rope and blankets. Geralt goes to pick him up and it’s so unbearably gentle and it makes Ciri’s heart ache for them.

“Is it… Did Nilfgaard do this?”, Ciri says, finally breaking the silence.

The lack of replies speaks for itself.

“Did they also hurt him like this…?”

A tear slips down her cheek and, in a gesture mirroring Geralt’s, Ciri goes to Jaskier and wants to take his hand, _because it’s her fault again, it always is_ , but it is bound and she cannot reach it. Instead, she pats his hair and he goes soft, eyes closing and the lines of pain on his pale face get a bit smoother. Geralt is standing next to Yennefer and she is holding him by the shoulders, having risen from her chair. 

“I can try to remove the tracking spell, then", she says and Geralt lays his hands over hers on his own shoulders. 

“Yen...”, he sounds grateful, but then Yennefer interrupts and looks as displeased as ever.

“But he might not survive it, Geralt.”

Ciri pales and her stomach turns. She twitches away from Jaskier and holds her hands over her mouth, looking at Yennefer with fear in her eyes. Roach nudges her back with her muzzle in a tender motion and Ciri lets out a sob. 

But then both Geralt and Yennefer are surrounding her, arms wrapped around her, shushing reassurances into her ear. It eases the rising _terror_ , but not the guilt.

But there’s determination blossoming inside her chest, too. If there’s anything she can do to help, she’ll do it, she decides.

Because the Lion Cub of Cintra won’t let someone else die for her. 

“We’ll do all that we can for him”, Geralt whispers, one hand patting her hair and it sounds like he’s trying to comfort himself, too. Yennefer doesn’t argue. 

They stay like that, embracing each other, for a bit longer. And then Jaskier falls off of the couch again with a whimper.


	4. Jaskier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But now he was covered in cuts again and he didn’t have the benefit of young skin that heals under the care of his parents, no, Jaskier knows fully well that these new marks won’t fade. Even if he tries to forget about them, they’ll always remind him of the taste of blood in his mouth and of the way the light hurts when he’s been kept in the dark for days.
> 
> But he doesn’t want to forget them. Like all wounds, they are a brand on his life, his own little arc of history, of what he’s been through and what he’s lived through.
> 
> What he hopes he will live through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some hinted at established relationship, thus a canon divergence before the this fic's plot takes place. Also heed the warnings and tags, this chap's rough!

When Jaskier was younger, he remembers always being covered head to toe in bruises and cuts, some of which left some nasty looking scars behind. Climbing trees, chasing foals and competing with his brothers and sisters at throwing each other into the pond in their garden will do that to you, he recalls his mother saying fondly. Very few marks actually survived into his adulthood, however, and those that did held a story that was laughable as much as it was heartwarming. See, on his calf, he had a cross-shaped scar from when he’d fallen leg first into a rosebush and one couldn’t ignore the little nick that left his eyebrows just  _ slightly _ asymmetrical from that one time when Jaskier had oh so very valiantly tried to protect his baby sister from a wasp and had spectacularly, no, really, stumbled into the door, _through_ the door , of all things, seeing as the wood was soft from age, yet still sharp when splintered.

But all these little blemishes, they made Jaskier who he is today. They shaped him, in a way, and when he looked upon them, he saw himself as a young excitable child who held the world in his heart and stars in his eyes. Because, though Jaskier didn’t have too many scars, not like Geralt, these were all fuzzy memories that Jaskier treasured more than a lot of fineries that had passed through his hands, more than clothing or jewellry or well-brewed ale.

But now he was covered in cuts again and he didn’t have the benefit of young skin that heals under the care of his parents, no, Jaskier knows fully well that  _ these _ new marks won’t fade. Even if he tries to forget about them, they’ll always remind him of the taste of blood in his mouth and of the way the light hurts when he’s been kept in the dark for days.

But he doesn’t want to forget them. Like all wounds, they are a brand on his life, his own little arc of history, of what he’s been through and what he’s lived through.

What he hopes he will live through.

* * *

Days pass before Jaskier meets someone else. Oh, the guards always change, but they’re just soldiers and cut out of the same fabric as all the others. Just suits of armour with violent hands, nothing else. They all bite the same, either way. So after days of only  _ guards _ and one or two visits from Cahir himself, Jaskier struggles, put his all and almost  _ fails _ to raise his head, as he hears the door open and can make out the distinct sound of _heels_ on stone. He can’t stop his whole body from shaking, no matter how much he wills it. Jaskier isn’t cold.

There are two sets of steps, though, and as Jaskier looks at them, azure eyes unfocused and rimmed by dark circles and even darker bruises, he almost jumps in shock, but Jaskier’s mangled body can’t manage more than a twitch and a more thorough shudder travelling up from the base of his spine to his neck.

In front of him, looking uncomfortable in the small cell and at the proximity between her and the prisoner, a mage stands tall and proud and Jaskier can tell she is a mage because the smell of ozone and  _ power _ floats in the air around her. A faded image of one Yennefer of Vengerberg floats in front of his eyes before he blinks it away. Next to the mage is Cahir, face caught in a combination of ire and absolute boredom, though a smile is tugging at his lips.

Jaskier shuffles back, but the chain linked to his collar won’t allow more than a few more inches of distance between Jaskier and the two.

The mage speaks, pursing her lips at Jaskier before turning to Cahir:

“I’m going to have to heal it first. It will not survive if its body is this weak.”

It’s just a few words but, beneath Jaskier’s skin, beneath layers of hurt and pain and fear, hidden by a constant ache in his bones and a mutilated body, simmers something new. Rage.

It. The mage had referred to him as an  _ it _ . Jaskier really wants to reply in kind here, that if there are any beings here not worthy of being called a person, it’s these nilfgaardian soldiers and their fucking leader who’s now smiling at the fury that must show through his posture, now gone from defensive to strained as Jaskier pulls at his chains. He wants to reply, but he can’t, his throat is too raw and Jaskier almost can’t bear the thought of  _ why  _ that is.

“Had we known of this method of tracking the witcher down, we’d have used it from the start. As it stands,  _ Fringilla _ , I had to do what I could”, Cahir looks at the mage, Fringilla, apparently, only throwing one disgusted glance in Jaskier’s general direction for barely a split second.

Jaskier spits at him, but he doesn’t even have enough saliva in his mouth to do more than sputter dryly around his heavy tongue. Fringilla tuts and waves a hand in front of Jaskier, displeasure and power shining in her black eyes.

Jaskier, through the wave of sleep that overcomes him, thinks she might have been beautiful, what with her long lashes and nicely shaped cheeks and her fine dark skin, but there’s a coldness in her eyes that turns all her nicely shaped features into edges of ice, ready to cut and stab.

When blinking to keep the drowsiness away doesn’t work Jaskier tries to bite his tongue, but his nerves don’t seem to function anymore. Belatedly, he notices that before his world went dark around him, lurching beneath his knees and enveloping him in sleep, he cannot feel the pain that his body had grown so accustomed to anymore.

And yet Jaskier knows this isn’t a kind gesture. The last thing he sees is the edge of Fringilla’s dark grey dress and the black boots that Cahir wears. Then Jaskier loses himself in unconsciousness.

* * *

Opening his eyes reveals black curtains. Blinking once more to clear them, because surely that’s a mistake of sorts, a prank that his senses are playing on him, showing him wooden beams also and soon, though not without great difficulty, Jaskier manages to turn his head a bit and notices that what he is looking at is, in fact, a bed canopy, dark, as though a mourning garment. Jaskier is in a bed.

The thought bounces in his head for a bit and Jaskier knows he looks just a bit too confused and too crazed at this predicament, because  _ what the hell _ ? Maybe it’s a dream, Jaskier thinks as he tugs his hands and legs, only to have his movement be impeded by the same heavy chains that he’s grown so accustomed to these last couple of weeks, but…

But his neck, though still collared, tightly, Jaskier might add, is not bound to anything. There’s no need to, he realises, as his wrists and ankles are tied to the bedposts, keeping him sufficiently immobilised. He’s not comfortable, by any means, he’s still cold, having been stripped of any rags that had once been his clothes, but all in all, he’s no longer in a small cell, presumably underground, but rather in a small room with a canopied bed in the middle. There’s a window to the other side, but black curtains are also drawn to keep any direct sunlight from reaching him. Jaskier shivers.

Jaskier is thinking so hard about what this all  _ means _ , crazily turning his head left and right, wriggling on the bed like a bound animal, which, Jaskier muses grimly, he kind of  _ is _ , and it takes him a bit longer than he’d like to admit to realise that, hey, his body doesn’t feel like a bag of bone shards and blood, no, he’s healing? He’s being healed. By whom?

Jaskier sniffles and there’s a hint of ozone in the air. He closes his eyes tightly, tears gathering on his lashes. Magic.

They moved him. To a bed chamber. Healed him. Jaskier goes a bit cross-eyed trying to figure it all out. They’re planning something, he knows it, but he cannot come up with any logical conclusion, not when his mind is still misty with pain and terror, not when he hears a door creak and wishes he could run and never look back, not when he can barely form  _ any _ truly coherent thoughts. Did they use something that could cause such an odd state of mind in the healing… Spell? Potion? Damn it, he had no idea what they  _ did _ to him after he fell asleep, and Jaskier is horrified by that fact. 

Two soldiers have entered the room by the time Jaskier manages to focus on his surroundings again. His guards, presumably, but unlike during his stay in the cell, when the space was so limited that it barely allowed for  stationed inside, this room, though on the smaller side, is big enough for the guards to remain  _ in _ the room _. _

The two men don’t remain by the door and approach Jaskier, bound as he is on the bed. His breathing stops and his heart hammers in his chest. One of the guards remains just next to the bed, probably waiting for his turn and keeping watch as the other extends a hand and caresses his cheek in mock affection. Jaskier just stares at him, mind suddenly so very silent, only allowing the mist that lingers at the back of his thoughts to exist. He doesn’t react. Jaskier stares at the canopy instead.

“Pretty bird”, the man says, grin wolfish and stretched almost unnaturally wide. He moves to stand between Jaskier’s legs on the bed and Jaskier doesn’t even acknowledge him. There’s a pattern on the black curtains. Little stars embedded into the dark fabric with silver string, small enough to not be noticed at first, but it is well made.

“You’re so quiet...”, the man on top of him kisses his neck and Jaskier thinks that he’d like to feel the material between his fingers. It looks like satin. It’s been a while since he last wore or felt satin on his skin.

“Sing for me”, and Jaskier tries, tries as hard as he can to keep himself in that safe, blank space that his mind sometimes conjures up, but eventually, the pain becomes too much and, by the time the men station themselves by the door again, he is still whimpering, voice broken by his screaming. 

Images of the slick red blood staining his thighs and the sheets beneath him plague Jaskier and slowly, very slowly, Jaskier thinks that, at least for now, he’s not going to be held back by his neck,  _ if he could just free his wrists and then, with the help of nimble fingers, his ankles- _

But there’s not enough blood and what does linger on his skin is not all too in reach. It’s dark enough outside that Jaskier can tell, despite the black curtains, that the sun has set. 

Jaskier turns his head to the side, staring at the window and tearing his gaze from the door and the soldiers watching him. He sniffles softly and tries to sleep. 

The guards change during the night, leaving his room free of any other people for about ten minutes, but Jaskier can still hear them chatting outside. And then a lone figure enters the room, tall and swift in their movements and something pulses within Jaskier’s chest. He’s still looking at the window when the figure draws the curtains, the golden light of sunrise, the same one that makes the shrivelled up corpse of his hope twitch and turn a bit colder, revealing Fringilla. Jaskier doesn't dwell on what he'd allowed his hopefulness to conjure up for more than a moment.

“You’re in a good enough state to begin”, is all she says, before leaving again.

Jaskier is still looking at the window with blank eyes and, what an odd thing, the are branches hitting the window, their soft pink blooms still closed this early in the morning. Magnolia flowers, Jaskier muses. The branches are so thin, though, the tree can’t be that old. Can’t be that tall, either. He’s not that high up, a floor, maybe two, above the ground.

In the fickle, golden rays of the new day, one of the flowers slowly opens up and Jaskier feels like he can breathe. He inhales for the first time in what seems like years, but has only been weeks, months at most.

“I’ve jumped from a second-floor storey before...”, Jaskier mumbles, a small smile that seems almost foreign to his facial muscles nowadays forming on his lips.

* * *

He has a lute in his lap and an eager audience in front of him. Maybe it’s a tavern or a royal court, he can’t tell. They all look at Jaskier and they clap along to his ditties and he smiles for them. They start throwing coins at him then, but the golden gleam reminds Jaskier of flowers, of his own namesake. And of soft eyes gazing at him.

He finishes his song and tiredness tugs at his limbs like stones attached with strings to his poor muscles, so Jaskier bows and smiles wider. Light shines in his eyes, a window perhaps, and he winces, trudging down the stage, or is it a bar table?

He stumbles into the crowd, but then there are hands grabbing at him, pinching and twisting and pulling him in and Jaskier tries to scream, he  _ does _ , but he’s sung his throat raw tonight, so all that comes out is-

Silence. 

The noise all but fades around him as he feels those same hands that had clapped along cheerfully just seconds ago force him down. Then there’s pain. There are people kicking at his soft body and all Jaskier can do is cover his face and curl in on himself.

He whispers a name, over and over again, voice shattering like glass dropped onto heavy stone, around the syllables.

“Geralt!  _ Geralt! _ ”

They keep kicking at him and he thinks he hears wood shattering before his world goes black.

_ Then they broke Jaskier’s lute over his own head and everything went dark _ .

* * *

Jaskier gasps awake, and then subsequently chokes on a sweet substance. He coughs loudly and strains his hands that are still tied to the bed - so  _ this _ part is real. They  _ did _ move him. The mage, Fringilla, Jaskier recalls through the haze, is standing above him, brows downturned into a disappointed frown, grey dress as severe as ever on her body. She has a green vial in her hand with a black substance inside.

She had been pouring  _ that _ down his throat.

Jaskier coughs even harder.

“You’re awake”, she says harshly. Fringilla pulls back and corks the vial up again. Then she squeezes it into her fist and it disappears into a tuft of smoke. Jaskier glares as best as he can. His face, though having had a bit of time to heal, still aches horribly.

“Living people tend to be so - awake”, his voice is no more than a whisper. The sweet taste lingers on his tongue and he almost gags. But no, Jaskier has to remain strong, has to… Has to make Fringilla talk somehow, has to make her tell him what the fuck that was.

Fringilla, to her credit, doesn’t react much, just looks down at him. She would put Geralt’s lack of communication skills to shame, Jaskier starts thinking, but then she raises a hand and taps him on the forehead. Suddenly, sleep blossoms in his mind, takes hold of his frame and Jaskier  _ fights _ to stay awake.

“Why are you- What was in there?”, he asks, heavy tongue just another binding, just another weight Jaskier doesn’t think he can hold anymore, doesn’t think he can throw down this time. 

His eyes are closed and his senses are water on a hot stove, smoke and nothing more, but Fringilla speaks, an odd glee shining through her words, making their meaning more dangerous:

“Nothing that concerns you, bard. You didn’t want to speak, so we’ll  _ free _ you.”

Jaskier feels like the sky collapses on him as a restless sleep takes him.

* * *

It’s snowing, the sky barely distinguishable from the white ground. The snowflakes land on his nose and on his lashes, but Julian pays them no mind and just laughs. One of his sisters, Wanda, is just a few feet in front of him, running through the thick layer of snow that could cover Julian up  _ easily _ , but they have nice snow boots, the ones that their mother had bought them during the Winter Festival after they begged and pleaded until the late hours of the morning, and so they remain above the glistening blanket of frost.

They are both giggling as they run towards a frozen pond that, come summer, will be surrounded by buttercups, out of which Wanda will make crowns for their whole family, even their stoic father and, small and rowdy as Julian is, even he will be able to discern a smile underneath his dark moustache.

But now the focus is on the ice that has covered the pond overnight. Julian knows that they’re not supposed to be here, but Wanda nodded excitedly as soon as Julian showed her the old ice skates their biggest brother had given him for his birthday.

They don’t waste any time and, as soon as they reach the pond, exchange boots for blades and then Julian is flying.

He’s never been the most graceful child, always stumbling and falling because  _ the world is just so interesting, how is he supposed to watch where he's going when he’s surrounded by beauty on all fronts _ ? But on ice… On ice, somehow, Julian feels at home, like the slippery surface and the chill are as familiar as staying with his family by the fire, telling stories and singing. He slips and slides and spins and jumps and Wanda giggles, breath rushing out of her when he circles around her at the speed of a particularly overjoyed kitten. 

Julian whoops and goes into another jump. The pond isn’t particularly big, but Wanda doesn’t really take up that much space, mostly standing to the side and watching Julian skate. She doesn’t like skating, Julian knows, but she’s happy to spend time with her little brother, regardless. Julian loves all of his siblings the same, but he has a soft spot for Wanda, seeing as she always indulges him just to see a toothy smile on his little face.

He skates from one side of the pond to the other as fast as he can and the feeling of the wind whipping past his cheeks is fantastic, Julian decides.

And then.

_ Crack! _

And then... Julian feels the ice slip from beneath him. White veins begin spreading on it and Wanda screams. Julian falls on his behind in the middle and she yells his name, yells it loud enough that the birds that have remained for the winter scatter from the trees like black arrows against the pale sky. Julian grabs at the shattering ice and tries to crawl away, tries to push himself towards the shore, toward his sister's outstretched hand, but she’s  _ so far _ .

“Julian!”, is the last thing Jaskier hears before he slips into the dark, cold waters and awakes to black curtains hanging above him.

* * *

This time it’s not just Fringilla with him, Cahir is there, too. He’s looking at Jaskier like a man would upon a particularly fertile piece of land. Like he’s just waiting for the time of harvest to come before he rips Jaskier’s very soul out of his chest. He sure looks like he’d do just that, and with a grin on his sharp face too.

Fringilla has her arms extended from her body, hands trembling with tension.

It takes a second, Jaskier thinks, for the pain to register, because it is so intense that it feels like he’s being set on fire and ground into pieces of glass, while being doused in acid all at once.

He doesn’t find the voice to scream.

“Maybe he’ll survive the procedure, after all”, Cahir sounds almost  _ reverent _ and it makes the pain somehow intensify. He continues speaking, as if he doesn’t think much of the man writhing on the bed in front of him like the chains are stretching him apart, limb from limb:

“He won’t have been so useless, then.”

Fringilla was chanting, Jaskier would later realise, when his head cleared, long after she and Cahir had left the room, curtains pulled once more to keep the moonlight away from their prisoner. Jaskier is trembling and there’s a name on his tongue, one that he wants to call out, but in his mind, golden eyes turn to grey and suddenly, the frown that Jaskier is so used to recalling in his darkest moments despite everything shifts into a dark smile on a sharp face, and then that figure, too, turns into a man with a black helmet and black armour, hands reaching for his body, ready to push into bruises until they darken, into cuts until blood beads on his skin and Jaskier screams at the vision.

The face in his mind keeps changing, and-

No.

No, Jaskier doesn’t scream. He  _ wails _ . His agony echoes loudly into the night as he tries to think of golden eyes and white hair but keeps seeing only monsters instead.

* * *

He’s looking at a fire, entranced by the red and yellow braiding together and casting both warmth and light into their little camp. Jaskier sighs and leans into a padded shoulder. It’s summer, but summers in Creyden might as well be called autumn preludes, as jar as Jaskier is concerned, especially at night. The man beside him grumbles deep in his chest and Jaskier cuddles further into him, smiling, content for now.

The trees around them are not very welcoming, charred skeletons that extend high, reaching for the starry sky, but still, while images of soft, silk sheets and bouncy mattresses do flash behind his now closed eyelids, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.

There’s an arm sneaking about his waist and then a blanket thrown over the two of them. Jaskier looks at his companion, is just about to kiss a stubbled jaw, but then there are golden eyes looking at him.

“Geralt...”

Geralt looks at him with confusion in his eyes as Jaskier jumps away from him, as though he’d been burned and, had Geralt not grabbed one of his wrists to keep him from stumbling into their fire, he would have been.

Jaskier can do no more than breathe loudly. There’s panic rising inside him.

No, no, he can’t be with Geralt, not now, no matter how much he wishes it, they’re looking for him, they-

Tears are falling from Jaskier’s chin as Geral suddenly grins cruelly at him and then his eyes go silver, instead.

For a second, just for a small, insignificant second, Jaskier tries to remember how they looked just  _ moments _ ago, their golden shade, their deep affection, and he  _ fails _ .

It feels a lot like a piece of his heart is ripped out from inside his chest as he lunges at Cahir, a scream caught in his chest.

No matter how much he tries to shriek and shout as Cahir wrestles him to the ground, it’s like there’s some invisible force choking the voice out of him.

Jaskier wakes to a feeling of hopelessness. He thinks he can move, if he tries, but he doesn’t want to.

* * *

“It’s been done...”, Fringilla says, but she doesn’t look happy. Her voice is laced with poison, instead of solemn finality. Cahir, who seems to have joined her again, also makes note of this.

“What’s wrong?”, there’s anger there, in his voice, but Cahir keeps it hidden beneath coldness, like fire contained in a piece of ice.

“Something’s… He’s fought it. And  _ won _ , in a way ”, Fringilla turns away from Jaskier. Cahir’s brow furrows. His eyes seem almost gold in the light of the dying sun. Almost. Jaskier lies there numbly, mind trying to set the pieces together, but everything is just  _ too much _ .

“He’s fought the  _ spell _ ?”, Cahir seems incredulous.

“Not quite. His mind’s succumbed to madness. I told you this, if their bodies are strong enough, they live. If not, they die. But if the  _ mind _ rebels against the spell, then it doesn’t take hold fully and they shatter”, she says this like a mother explaining to a child that the sky is blue. Cahir huffs.

“So just another failure, then?”

“Is it?”, Fringilla turns her head to throw a disgusted glance at Jaskier, “He’s more vulnerable now. I do think he might be a bit more,  _ ah _ , open about everything.”

Cahir does smile, then, and  _ it’s just like his dream, fuck, he can’t move, he’s tied- He’s pinned down- _

No sooner does Fringilla leave does Cahir descend upon him with punches and slaps and kicks and a knife to his arm. Jaskier doesn’t react.

No sooner does  _ Cahir  _ leave do the guards come in. The sun has set now, the room bathed in purple light which pulls at a memory as he stays there, unresponsive, as they touch him, as he doesn’t find the strength to do anything more than breathe and, later, after the guards have retired to standing by the door and chatting about how Jaskier could make such a  _ nice _ bed warmer like this, all obedient and bloody, sob softly, silently, head turned away from the door, eyes stuck on the window.

* * *

The sky is pitch black, clouds having rolled over the twinkling stars like an ominous veil of shades, by the time the guards shift. Jaskier lays on the bed, eyes glassy, and he hears them talk as though he’s underwater, not really comprehending much. He bites his lip when he starts wiggling his wrists in his cuff, which get slick with blood as he opens up his new cuts.

The blood isn’t enough, but he just needs to _push_ a little harder. Jaskier realises that his thumbs are dislocated when he finally _ , finally _ , slips his wrists out of the cuffs. He is distracted by his shaking fingers only for a second, the pain no longer registering, before he sets to work on his ankles. It’s easier there, and Jaskier feels the tears slip down his cheeks as he grabs one of the black curtains from the canopy,  _ rips _ it from the wooden frame and drapes it over his naked corpse of a body. He knows he only has a few minutes left before that damned door behind him opens, so Jaskier heads to the window.

It’s not locked.

Jaskier feels even more fresh tears leave tracks in the blood caking his face. He doesn’t wait anymore and jumps.

The pain still doesn’t register, even as he takes in the unnatural angle at which his right leg stands, even as he runs into the cover of the surrounding woods. 

The pain doesn’t register until he reaches a town at the crack of dawn and an older lady tries to reach for him. Everything comes crashing down, then, and Jaskier sobs only once and collapses in the mud of the street leading into the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a bit longer to update, but, y'know, exams and stuff ^^;  
> Anyways, I hope the next chapter (we're finally getting Geralt's POV! Yay!) won't take as long.


	5. Geralt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier gives him another smile, so bright that it hurts, before promptly fainting.

To say that witchers have no emotions is to say the sea looks calm. A blank face, a mirror surface of endless blue, a lack of reaction, a vast array not disturbed by ripples. That is to say, it is but a charade. A fool’s oversight. It isn’t even that there aren’t different levels of emotional capacity that range from witcher to witcher, but that rings true for all humans, all conscious beings, even for ones that, the world would claim, are more monster than not, for all intents and purposes.

But Geralt has never been too bothered with dispersing rumours and myths, let the people think what they want to think was a philosophy he lived by, as long as it didn’t bring any trouble along the way.

But as any fisher worth their money would know, it is a calm sea that hides the strongest of currents and the deepest caves. It is a calm sea that people _should_ fear.

Geralt didn’t feel emotion like the average man, not because of his mutations, no, but by choice. Yes, it was advised to hide any feelings even while they were still training, and yet a mask is not the same as a new face completely.

He’s felt happiness before, rare as the moments that spark any joy at all are. Geralt’s happiness is found in the simple things: a warm meal, a good cup of ale, a hot bath, _pale skin flushing from the tips of his ears to the tops of his shoulders, blue eyes squinted mischievously_.

Geralt’s felt anger, when the monsters he hunted turned out to be masquerading as humans, when he was stoned out of a town, as though he hadn’t just saved all of the townsfolk with his _ungodly mutations_ , when nature didn’t agree with him on the road and poured down like it was trying to drown anyone still haunting the paths, _when a scream echoed in the night and he turned to see a bandit from the gaggle of thieves that were foolish enough to try and steal from a witcher, from Geralt, nonetheless, holding a squirming Jaskier by the neck with a knife pointed at his heart_.

He’s felt disgust, he’s felt satisfaction, he's felt betrayal and he’s pushed down most of it to follow the Path, to do his job. But even the sturdiest of walls crack with enough pressure and even the most massive of cliffs can be eroded by the sea, given enough time.

What Geralt feels now, looking upon a colourless face, lined in purple bruises and scratches and _despair_ , gazing into unfocused pools of azure, watching the man he… Watching Jaskier, lifeless as he seems in this moment, laying bound on the dusty couch, is _terror_.

It is not easy to frighten a witcher, it is not easy to frighten _Geralt of Rivia_ , it is not easy because he deals with monsters on the daily, because the dark is more familiar to him by now than the sunlight, because a part of Geralt feels every bit as monstrous as the prey he hunts for coin, but he is terrified of what they’d done to break the man before him. 

Geralt hunts monsters, but he is never the one to deal with the aftermath. He isn’t the one to soothe the victims or comfort the family of the ones already dead.

No, Geralt feels comfortable getting rid of the danger plaguing a village, but _this…_

This is more than he can stand, more than he has ever felt before.

Geralt is afraid that he’s going to lose the one thing that he treasures more than the world itself for the _second_ time.

Afraid he’s already lost it.

* * *

“We’ll let him rest for the night”, Yennefer says, spelling her chair away just as easily as she’d summoned it, but he knows she just makes it _look_ easy, but her powers are still somewhat drained, even months after Sodden.

Geralt goes to pick Jaskier up from where he’s fallen off the couch again, fingers cramping from how tight he digs them into his own palms. Yennefer coaxes Cirilla into a bedroll next to Roach and he can still hear her soft sniffles. He sighs and wraps his arms around Jaskier, who’s begun struggling again, not quite as aggressively as before, though.

Blue eyes show no recognition as they land on him and Geralt, instead of simply laying Jaskier down again, sits on the couch himself, holding Jaskier in his lap sideways, supported by his hands on his back. Jaskier tries to lean into him and bite at him, but Geralt keeps him steady. Geralt looks at Yennefer and Cirilla once more. Cirilla is asleep already, still whimpering softly into her sleep and he knows Yennefer magicked her into slumber again. Purple eyes watch him with intense curiosity, but Yennefer looks tired. Worried, maybe.

Geralt lays Jaskier down on the couch again and can’t help but run a thumb down his cheek, slowly, careful not to put any pressure against already bruised skin. It’s as soft as he remembers it, but it is pulled tightly over his cheek bones. He gets up only two get one of the packages that had been laid next to Roach, the one containing their supplies, and retrieves a piece of hard cheese wrapped in a clean cloth and some dried fruit, together with a skin of water. He returns to the couch and props Jaskier up against the back of it. 

Jaskier sighs, softly, exhaling through his nose and Geralt thinks he might be able to smell the old cheese and fruit. An empty smile tugs at the side of his mouth. Jaskier, being human and all, had never had the sense of smell that a witcher possessed, but he’s always been more sensitive to scents than most people, anyways. Geralt sits down with the cloth spread in his lap and, as he stretches toward Jaskier to feed him, _fuck, they must have starved him, he looks so thin_ , he notices that his eyes are closed. Jaskier looks like he’s contemplating, brows furrowed just a pinch, face otherwise calm and Geralt almost doesn’t want to disturb him, in case trying to hand feed will make Jaskier act out again. But he’s worried about keeping Jaskier from staving, too, so Geralt continues anyways.

He is trying to sneak a bit of the cheese that he’d just broken of past cracked lips when Yennefer speaks. He doesn’t react much, seeing as he was expecting it.

“The spell… I know about it. It is not a successful attempt”, her voice is low in the night, but there’s an edge to it, razor-sharp, but sheathed for now.

Jaskier finally opens his mouth and, after swallowing the first bit of cheese, seems a lot more cooperative. His eyes are still closed and Geralt wonders what he must be thinking about, where he is, in his mind, because Geralt is sure he isn’t exactly, well, _here_ , mentally speaking.

“Hm”, is the only answer Geralt gives. It prompts Yennefer to explain further. He feeds Jaskier a dried grape and he almost smiles. He’s always had a sweet tooth, he recalls, almost with fondness, but not quite, the bitterness of the circumstances strangling it.

“It’s forbidden magic.”

Those words are enough to still Geralt’s movements for a second, but then Jaskier whines softly and Geralt grabs a piece of dried peach. He eats it with a gentle hum and Geralt is reminded of better times, when he’d fed Jaskier and how the soft sounds he made then when he enjoyed a particular delicacy or sweetmeat stayed with Geralt for days afterwards.

“Nilfgaard isn’t known for sticking to the rules”, Geralt grumbles and reaches for the waterskin. It takes a few tries to make Jaskier tilt his head back, but eventually, he complies and drinks a few mouthfuls before his consciousness slips and, where Geralt not as good as he is at _still_ detecting changes in Jaskier’s breathing, he might have witnessed a drowning. He can tell, even now, when Jaskier falls asleep. Geralt sighs. He can almost feel Yennefer roll her eyes.

“No. They aren’t”, she seems far away and Geralt assumes she’s remembering something from Sodden. He puts the food and water back and makes sure Jaskier is tucked in, still wincing at the rope that he’s had to wind around him. It can’t be too comfortable.

“But this spell, in particular, has such a low success rate that I’d have thought Fringilla wouldn’t risk it ”. Yennefer finally says, and Geralt looks at her. She is sitting on another bedroll next to Cirilla. Her fingers are stroking strands of off-white hair soothingly. Geralt remembers a certain conversation about parenthood and resigns himself to apologising and taking his words back when Jaskier is safe from this _curse_. 

When, not if.

His subconscious, which has been swirling around with muted rage in the background ever since he’d seen Jaskier so broken, takes note of the name of who he assumes is the mage of Nilfgaard.

“Yen”, he speaks this quietly as he settles on the floor in front of the couch.

“Geralt”, she replies.

“How do we remove it?”, his teeth are clenched as he asks, but Geralt tries to focus on something else. Not on the weakened figure behind him, not on too intense eyes, but rather on the broken window. The wind still whistles through the cracks.

“The same way it was cast”, it’s said with the resignation of a teacher in front of a student who struggles through a lesson. Geralt knows how spells work. He’s asking the specifics. Yennefer is avoiding the subject and Geralt feels a muscle tighten in his neck at what that hesitation tells him.

There is a beat of silence between them, punctuated by the heartbeat Geralt can hear best due to closeness. Jaskier’s pulse is rabbit fast and still somewhat weakened, but still better than before he’d been fed. Better than nothing. Then Yennefer breaks the silence with a deafening blow:

“The spell is predated by a potion that allows magic to flow through non-sources. Then an incantation that is supposed to link whatever you’re tracking to the one the spell is cast on.”

Another fucking magical bond. Fuck-

Yennefer interrupts his line of thinking with a raised brow and says:

“It’s _supposed_ to.”

Geralt stares at Yennefer, then back at Jaskier, the cracked window distraction forgotten.

“Can you tell what went wrong?”, he asks, unnecessarily. Yennefer might not have all of her powers back, but her senses in magic and Chaos are unmatched, as far as mages Geralt knows go.

“Somewhat”, she hesitates, “The potion part went alright, seeing as he’s not being ripped apart by chaos yet, but the incantation… Well.”

She dims the blue orb, the only source of light other than the moon, which is half-hidden behind clouds.

“Tell me”, Geralt presses, but his gaze is back on Jaskier. In sleep, swallowed by blankets and with this little pained line between his brows that just won’t go away, he looks so small and fragile and Geralt just wants to punch someone. Run them through with his sword. Were a stupider man, no matter what Yennefer says about him already having the emotional intelligence of a particularly rough piece of soil, he might have considered facing the nilfgaardian forces and proving his status as a butcher. Still, the anger, muted though it is by logic and worry, doesn’t help the bloodlust he suddenly feels.

“I think he fought against it. Mentally. Gods know, he would have done so physically as well, were he able to”, Geralt remembers the half-healed wounds on his wrists and ankles and his fucking _neck,_ too, “But that wouldn’t have stopped the spell. It supposedly uses memories of the target being tracked to work, which is why they needed your bard, specifically, seeing as he was your _friend._ ”

 _Friend._ Geralt almost smiles. So she knew, then. Though he’s not looking at her, he imagines she _is_ , mockingly, almost daring him to fight her on why she’d put so much emphasis on that word. The suggestion is clear enough. And true enough. After all, he’d gone to her tent, back on that wretched mountain and it didn’t take him more than a second under Yennefer’s judging eyes to turn around. It had been the first time Geralt realised how much he… Cared for Jaskier, and not just as a bedmate or companion, when he’d seen how much he lighted up when he saw Geralt came back to him, when he realised that Geralt had chosen. When Geralt had smelled the happiness pouring out of Jaskier in waves, as they slept, as they often did, cuddled under the stars. It hadn’t been cold enough to warrant huddling for warmth, nor did they do anything more than just sleep in each other's arms, Geralt thinks even now. It was a statement, coming from Geralt, he knows. Geralt had fallen asleep so easily holding Jaskier, feeling the skin of his hip under his shift and doublet, warm and smooth.

And then he’d turned him away, because Geralt, with all the wisdom he didn’t have, had considered that, with the realisation of just how much Jaskier meant to him, he would only manage to bring Jaskier down with him, would ruin his life. And Geralt knows now just how stupid a choice that had fucking been.

“Alright, how rude”, Yennefer interrupts.

Geralt twitches back into the present. 

"What...”

“At least bid me farewell when you decide to have a trip down memory lane, so long as you don’t even have the manners to invite me along”, Yennefer chuckles lightly under her breath.

Geralt shakes his head but smiles a bit. Then he remembers the circumstances and his expression sours. Yennefer shakes her head and just looks at him. It’s the sort of look that she would give him when he said something that he particularly regretted. Geralt always thought it looked an awful lot like tenderness.

“So he… Fought against it. How does that affect the spell?”, Geralt rubs a hand over his stubble, nose wrinkled.

Yennefer twirls a strand of dark hair, not looking at him. She probably tries to think of a way respond, so as to not worry him further, but the pause only serves in raising the tension.

“The Chaos hasn’t dissipated and, though he could not lead them to you, he probably still has some sort of reaction to you. Or rather, the spell, failed as it is, does”, and somehow, it’s both worse and better than he expects, because the nilfgaardians probably figured that Jaskier wouldn’t help them out too much, which means they haven’t followed him, but that also begs the question of _how_ Jaskier got away, but… There’s Chaos inside Jaskier right now, ruled by a miscast spell. 

And if that doesn’t make Geralt’s head spin with worry, then little else can.

“Then why didn’t he launch a flare when he first saw me?”, just like Jaskier’s escape ( _Did_ he escape? Or did the nilfgaardians let him go? Both options seem just a bit unlikely), this particular question also irks Geralt. Yennefer bites her lip, then looks at Geralt, chin tilted up.

“I think that has less to do with magic and more to with his own mind, Geralt.”

 _Trauma_ , the word floats unspoken between them. 

The world shifts around Geralt, just a little, just enough that he loses his grip on his careful control. He doesn’t react, not really, not _outwardly_ , but his mind goes into overdrive. 

Jaskier looks at Geralt with the eyes of a stranger, with _fear_ and _pain_ and _fury_. He struggles against them, he acts like they’re trying to hurt him, he lashes out where Jaskier would usually smile and shrug. But it’s not because of a spell. It’s not something that would go away with a counter chant.

Jaskier’s mind lays fragmented before them and Geralt doesn’t know if he can stand the thought. That they’re already too late. That _he_ is too late, that, if only he hadn’t pushed Jaskier away on the mountain once he realised how deeply he’d embedded himself in Geralt’s fucking heart, Jaskier might have-

He might-

“Geralt”, Yennefer admonishes him and he knows that voice. 

“Will he ever… Can I-”

“The mind”, Yennefer interrupts, her head cocked to the side and her nose in the air, “It is not easily understood, nor healed, even by mages.”

 _So what can_ I _do?_

She hears the question even before he opens his mouth to speak the first word.

“You stay by him. He had a… A moment of clarity. When he launched the flare. He _knew you_ , then”, and Geralt knows the statement to be true, but it hits him like a wave.

“There must be something else I can do...”, Geralt doesn’t want her pity, but he knows Yennefer would never pity him. They both know that that sentiment is too weak for the connection they share. But she does sympathise with him.

“He might heal, given time, but all anyone can do is support him. Your bard is strong, Geralt”, she looks at Jaskier, then, and Geralt knows they never got along too well and that Yennefer laughed at his mortality and humanity both, whenever they met. Jaskier always quipped back, even if it was just an awkward joke.

“I have a feeling that he’ll get better. Just stay by him. Who knows, maybe after we remove the spell, he’ll see things more clearly, too. That fool’s always been a bit special like that”, is the last thing she says before she finally lays down, and Geralt knows the conversation is over. He looks down at Jaskier.

_Stay by him._

_Stay_.

It’s a harsh piece of advice, to stay, to keep _still_ , when all Geralt wants to do is to fight all who hurt Jaskier, when all he wants is to wrap his arms around him and to see recognition in his wide blue eyes, when all he’s ever done in his too long life is _move_.

But he’ll try. He has to.

Jaskier whimpers in his sleep. Geralt lays a hand on his head, patting the dirty curls in slow motions. He seems to relax, just a bit.

* * *

Even before the sun rises the next morning, Yennefer is up and ordering Geralt around. She has an ingredient kit that holds almost everything she needs for a concoction that would cancel out the effects of the potion that the nilfgaardians’ mage, Fringilla, Geralt’s still angry subconscious reminds him, gave Jaskier, but a few, easily obtainable herbs are still lacking, so she sends Geralt away to look for them in the woods. Cirilla is awake and assisting Yennefer in the preparations for the counterspell and, although Geralt won’t admit it, not out loud, his heart warms at the sight.

Jaskier is still sleeping and he has the sneaking suspicion that Yennefer had cast another sleeping spell on him, a stronger one this time, seeing as the one she used the last time had been too weak to overpower the faulty tracking spell’s lingering magic.

Geralt is back before the morning mist has had time to clear from the landscape.

Yennefer works quickly. Geralt would never doubt her skill, even if worry threatens to eat him out alive. They’d taken to working outside of the farmhouse. Geralt had dragged Jaskier and the couch he was still sleeping on onto the dew-damp grass. Yennefer brings out a vial filled with clear liquid. Cirilla looks at it reverently, but then she bites her lips and her eyes flicker to Jaskier. He’s still bundled in his blankets, and, underneath, bound.

“Now, I want you both to _listen_ to me”, Yennefer speaks before uncorking the small vial and, at the contact with air, it seems to _glisten_ , closer in shine to liquid diamonds than water. Geralt takes Yennefer’s warning at face value. He knows that she would have no problem using something much stronger than any Axii he could cast to make them obey her, regardless.

“I will give him this”, she twirls the vial between her fingers, “It will make his body reject the chaos again. Unlike the original spell, the potion is the most dangerous part here.”

Geralt knows what Chaos does to a body that cannot contain or conduct it. He wants to protest, but then Yennefer’s eyes catch his and Geralt promptly shuts his mouth, growling lowly. Cirilla gulps next to Yennefer.

“Then I will need you, Geralt, to hold him down. The Chaos won’t be kind to his body. Ciri, you will go to Roach”, her voice leaves no room for argument, but Cirilla tries anyways. She doesn’t even get to speak before Yennefer cuts her off with a raised hand.

“Animals are more sensitive to magical currents. She will be scared”, and while that is true, Geralt knows that Jaskier will not react all too nicely to the counterspell. Yennefer doesn’t want to traumatise Cirilla any further and, as she looks at him with big green eyes, almost begging him to go against Yennefer in her stead, he just shakes his head. Yennefer pretends not to notice them and continues:

“In the interval between being free of the bond to Chaos and it destroying him, I will cast the counter. All in all, it shouldn’t be too complicated, even for you”, Yennefer looks at him as she says it. A joke to lighten the mood, perhaps, but Geralt just grinds his teeth together. The trees around the move in the breeze, slowly, almost hauntingly. It a contrast to the way they'd been pelted down by the heavy rain yesterday

“Alright, then”, she claps her hands together and looks at both Cirilla and Geralt, the vial caught between slender fingers, “Let us begin.”

Geralt removes the blankets from Jaskier where he lays on the couch and he opens his eyes, his _blank_ eyes, and stares at Geralt as though he cannot see him. Geralt isn’t sure what hurts most, when he fights against Geralt as though he were a monster attacking him, or when he doesn’t even acknowledge Geralt, looks _lost_ where he stands. Geralt shrugs the thoughts off and unbinds him. He would hurt himself against them if he struggles the way Yennefer predicts he will. Geralt doesn’t look at the dark bruise on his chest, _blood underneath his skin_ , that he knows is still there, instead grabs a single blanket and throws it around Jaskier’s shoulders. It’s a warm morning, especially compared to yesterday’s cold rain and subsequent storm, but Jaskier is still naked other than the loose pants Geralt managed to wrestle on him a few hours earlier, before Yennefer had sent him off.

Geralt steps back, then, allowing Yennefer to take his position before Jaskier. She looks almost somber as she tilts his head back and tips the vial over his slightly parted lips. It takes less than a second for Jaskier to react.

For the bond to break.

Geralt is on him before Jaskier even has time to jolt. In the back of his mind, he registers Cirilla running towards the abandoned farmhouse. He grasps Jaskier’s whole upper body and arms in what could be described as a hug. His back presses into Geralt’s chest and he hates how sharp Jaskier’s ribs feel against his own frame.

Jaskier screams, then.

It is a shrill, pained scream, one that Geralt would expect from a dying man. The thought has Geralt reeling, but he holds steady. The birds in the trees surrounding them take off in a loud cacophony of wing beats. He can already hear Yennefer start chanting, but all Geralt focuses on is holding Jaskier. He drops his forehead against Jaskier’s shoulder, right next to his nape. Jaskier skin is cold and clammy, but Geralt feels him relax just the slightest bit. Maybe it’s his imagination, but he’ll take anything at this point, _anything_ to distract him from Jaskier’s pain, from his screams that echo and seem to circle around Geralt. Geralt's eyes sting.

It is over in under a minute and both Jaskier and Yennefer collapse. Geralt goes down with them. Cirilla comes back out of the house and is by Yennefer’s side before he has time to think that, fuck, she must have been watching through the window. The two of them walk back into the house, but not before Yennefer smiles down at him and Jaskier, almost smugly, despite how much she’s leaning against Cirilla.

Geralt looks at Jaskier then.

He is panting, sweat dripping down his forehead, red rimming his eyes. But, somehow, Jaskier looks at peace. Blue eyes meet gold and there’s a spark of recognition, of familiar affection there. Geralt squeezes him in his arms and feels something cold drip down his chin onto the crown of Jaskier’s head.

Jaskier smiles up at him from his embrace, shakily and hesitantly, as if he’s not sure that _this_ is real. Tears bead up in his eyes and spill over, shining just as brightly as the liquid diamond of the concoction Yennefer had given him. Jaskier gives a laugh, one that speaks of disbelief, which is then morphing into shock, which is then morphing into _adoration_ and Geralt can’t help himself. He smiles too, then, and it’s been so long since he’s smiled, he couldn’t, not without Jaskier by his side.

He presses their foreheads together and feels something dislodge in his chest. He thinks his heart beats stronger, all of a sudden, truer. Then a thumb is caressing his cheek, beneath his eye and he hears a voice, the one voice that he _loves_ , as Jaskier says so very heartbreakingly sweetly:

“Geralt… My love, don’t cry...”

It’s whispered against his lips, quiet, almost too much so, but there’s so much affection in there and Geralt _falls apart,_ in the arms of the _man_ he _loves_. He hasn’t cried in so long that Geralt almost doesn’t believe him at first. Jaskier snakes his arms around Geralt’s neck.

“Julian...”, he sobs it into Jaskier’s neck. Jaskier holds on to him with as much strength as he can muster, so much so that he trembles. 

Jaskier gives him another smile, so bright that it _hurts,_ before promptly fainting.


	6. Jaskier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then he sees Geralt and the feeling of strong arms around him registers in his brain. Jaskier touches his chest, but there’s no more pain. He doubts that he’d actually feel it, even if it was there, but in this moment, all he can think of is the man in front of him, who has tear tracks running down his cheeks, who looks at him with a combination of awe and heartbreak that breaks Jaskier’s damn soul a little. 
> 
> In that moment, that blessed moment, Jaskier cares about nothing else, cannot be bothered with memories of hurt and torment, cannot be reached by the even more distant thoughts of abandonment and heartache, because he’s home .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to think that I'd have one last chapter for this work, but it felt better to leave the ending a bit more open, thus, enjoy the ending to this painful ride ^^

Jaskier has met healers before, when he was younger and fell sick. After all, he was quite sickly, growing up, being more sensitive to the cold and too much of a bastard to stay inside during a blizzard, at the same time. He’s had enough moments after that, after leaving home, actually, after leaving Oxenfurt, while travelling the Continent, when he brushed shoulders with Death and got a bit crumpled up in the process. Naturally, for such an irrational child and an adventurous adult, Jaskier has met healers before.

They hole up in their studies, surrounded by bottles of dried herbs and other elixirs that are only remarkable due to their gods awful smells, are usually quite wise, and, if Jaskier is lucky, kind also. Jaskier thinks that, had he not been bound to the barding profession by his love of music and epics, maybe in another life, he’d have chosen this path of life also, he’d have liked to help people. To heal them. 

Somehow, though, all this information, all these memories, all these associations elude him when he wakes up.

* * *

He must be floating somewhere, Jaskier thinks. He cannot see, but he figures that it must be because his lids are too heavy for him to lift right now, and all of his other senses are out of commission. The funny thing is that he cannot even feel his _body,_ which is equal measures wonderful, seeing as, maybe for a moment, just a _second_ , everything doesn’t hurt like he’s been thrown around, dropped off a cliff and then thrown around some more, but also worrying, because _he cannot feel his body_. Jaskier imagines that this must be what death feels like. Awake, but unresponsive, sensitive, but equipped with nothing to register or actually sense anything around him, submerged in suffocating darkness, with seemingly no way out. 

But then, there’s a pang of pain in his shoulder. Jaskier focuses on the single point, an image of a knife being driven between the bones making him wince. He’s wincing now. Jaskier can feel his arm, his face, maybe, what else?

Slowly, almost carefully, as though his consciousness were being trickled back into him, drop by painful drop, as though life were burning through him again, a fire that spreads along humid wood. Jaskier wants to say that, after being in the dark for a bit, after feeling separated from his damn soul, he feels reinvigorated, wants to say that he takes a breath and it fills his lungs satisfyingly. That the soft sheets beneath him caress his skin pleasantly after so much abuse. That he _wants_ to wake up. That, Jaskier swears between his teeth as the full brunt of his injuries hits him, is sadly not the case.

Jaskier opens his eyes and the effort such a simple action takes from where there’s no energy left to give almost makes him want to close them again. He’s… In a room. Astute observation, truly. Jaskier frowns. The sheets feel very fine beneath his fingers, if a bit cold. 

Jaskier’s eyes snap open, breathing suddenly laboured, the strain on his ribs not something Jaskier registers at the moment.

He’s in a bed. He’s…

_They moved him. To a bed chamber. Healed him._

_Again._

The fact that there are shelves in the room Jaskier’s inside of at the moment, lined with glass vials and small pots, that there’s an awful, plant-like smell about the room, it is not something Jaskier will realise until later, when his mind isn’t drowning in panic and rising fear. Right now, it’s like he’s looking at the world through water, everything distorted by the waves of his thoughts, his memories. Jaskier knows what he sees, but it’s like he can’t actually process any of it.

Jaskier sees a canopy above his head and black curtains instead of the wooden beams of an attic room designed for medical purposes and the shadows cast by the afternoon sun. Jaskier gasps when he notices that he’s not _alone_ . He sees a woman in front of him with black eyes and a grey cloak and suddenly, it’s as if he’s been set down on coal, _forced down onto it_ , his body writhing and his wounds pulsing as adrenaline pumps through his veins.

He will not be held captive again, Jaskier will not-

So Jaskier sits up in bed, pushes the woman out of his way and, it’s a bit weird, actually, did she forget to cuff him? How foolish. His ankles ache and his wrists pulse with uncomfortable heat.

Jaskier crashes through the attic window and lands on a balcony. There’s an apple tree growing just to the side, so he climbs it down with all the grace of a drunken squirrel and keeps running. Has to, Jaskier reminds himself, because he will not succumb, no matter how many chains they wrap around his neck, how many hits they deliver, how much they _touch_ him, the only way Jaskier will _let them_ is if he’s dead. Because Jaskier is the last resort the nilfgaardians have that they can possibly use to get to-

 _To whom?_ Golden eyes flash behind his eyes as his feet pound against the dirt of the pathway he’s running down, but for a moment, Jaskier cannot place them, _for a moment_ , the gold turn _quicksilver_ , and then there’s a name on Jaskier’s lips. He keeps running.

Jaskier runs away like the devil is on his heels and it takes him getting out of town and the sun setting overhead to finally have the urge to think, just a bit, to _remember_ . That woman hadn’t been a mage, hadn’t been Fringilla for sure, and he was in a room made of wood. Jaskier hadn’t been tied to the bed and he was dressed in a grey shirt and soft brown trousers, feet bare, Jaskier notes, looking down at his toes wiggling in the hard dirt path, but he is dressed. He remembers leaving his nilfgaardian capturers with only a heavy drape of cloth. Jaskier focuses. There had been shelves of herbs and, yes, possibly, _medicine_ . That woman had been a healer. _Melitele damn him_.

Jaskier’s head hurts as he recalls all this and starts disentangling the mess that reality made of his mind when his memories got mixed in.

This will surely become a problem, Jaskier knows this, because a man who cannot distinguish between the past and the present is a dead man, enough tragedies about revenge taught him that. But he has to keep moving, he’ll heal from this too, eventually. There’s a faint ache in his chest, but it is nothing, what with his whole body having been beaten black and blue, his nerves scraped raw, his skin dirtied. Jaskier has to keep moving, has to find something, _someone_.

Geralt. Geralt?

For a second, a faces flashes before his eyes, but it is gone before he has time to really _look_ . Yellow. White. A wolf? A white wolf with yellow eyes, _golden_ eyes. A scar on his cheek, another on his forehead. Jaskier stills for less than a second, and then...

_Geralt._

Jaskier starts walking, lungs still burning, on the path, hoping against all hope that, come night, he’ll reach another town and hold on to reality long enough to fall asleep under a roof, even if it’s a stable roof, seeing as he has no coin for an actual bed, so that he might continue his journey after his aching bones have had time to rest, just a little.

Stopping is not an option, not yet, because Jaskier has someone to find.

He hopes he does. His mind’s getting fuzzy again and with it, his memories are getting tangled up, collapsing in on themselves, as if he cannot offer them enough support to keep them coherent.

* * *

Jaskier passes through another three towns before the mist over his thoughts recedes enough to allow him to think. He’s managed to sweet-talk his way into an inn room and a piece of coal and a paper. He’s still hungry, but the berries he’s eaten, _thinks_ he’s eaten just before he reached this town, should last him until he leaves this place too and forages for something else. For now, he’s sat in the inn room, the paper on a small desk beneath the window, coal in hand. It’s thin enough to hold as he would a pencil, but it leaves his fingers black. Jaskier scrunches his nose a little, but drags the chair from under the table and sits down, gingerly, his wounds, mostly scabbed over by now, still hurting. 

Deep breath in, Jaskier tells himself, before he raises the coal.

He remembers how much writing used to help him sort out his thoughts and he prays, almost begs the Gods, for that to be the case now also. Jaskier is aware, at least partially, that he loses time. If the three towns he’s passes through in his half-aware state are proof of anything, it is that he cannot rely on his own mind. Damn it, he’s not sure he can do that now either, but Jaskier hopes that his lucidity at the moment isn’t just some weird, made-up hallucination, but represents him, in fact, catching a glimpse of reality in the crack of the lenses that he seems to view the world through lately.

He brings the coal down onto the paper.

With shaky fingers and unfocused eyes, Jaskier notes down everything he remembers, everything he feels like he’d want to know if his memory fails him again, or, even worse, if he starts threading the line between what is and what he imagines _could_ be.

The candle on the small desk is almost entirely melted by the time Jaskier settles into bed, his muscles screaming for a break and his hands smeared with coal. There’s a slip of paper in his clenched fist and Jaskier hopes beyond all hope that destiny, for once, will be kind. She’s been kind to him before, but right now, Jaskier would use some guidance. He falls asleep like that.

* * *

The next time Jaskier awakes, he’s in the middle of the woods, his note to himself still inside his fist. He cannot recall actually walking there.

With a weary heart, he walks on. Thankfully, while he was in his not-quite-awake state, he managed to get himself on a small forest trail which goes north, so he’s not _entirely_ lost. Jaskier’s feet ache, too, now, but he still can’t stop. Not yet. It takes him a second to recall who he’s looking for.

* * *

He loses his note by the time he wakes up in yet another town, so hungry and tired that he feels as though he were closer to a corpse than a man, and it makes tears burn in his eyes as he looks around. He’s in a market. He tries to remember what he wrote to himself, but his head hurts so much. He spots a couple of men walking by, one of them holding a small pouch that rattles as he throws it up and then catches it in his palm again. Jaskier focuses in on it and it’s like time slows for a second. A stupid plan forms in his head.

They kick him in the ribs so hard that, with his thin frame and lack of strength, he just _flies_ _off_ and lands at the feet of a lady. Jaskier had been hungry, always is nowadays, else he’d never turn to stealing, he’s not that kind of man. He isn’t, is he? 

No, Jaskier decides, but he _is_ desperate. He feels weak and on the verge of passing out again. His thoughts are whirling in his head, the mist that he’s come to fear slowly creeping in and he’s just too fatigued for this right now. All of his wounds are weighing on him and the pain in his chest, the only one that’s never dulled over these last couple of weeks, Jaskier thinks, hopes it’s been only weeks, throbs, as if in agreement that he can’t go on like this. So Jaskier grabs the lady’s skirts. His stomach rolls with nausea and his breaths only worsen the feeling, but he needs air to speak. Still, no words pass through cracked and bloodied lips and Jaskier curses himself. Just one word, he begs the gods, he only needs one word, he’s sure she’ll understand, but Jaskier hasn’t spoken in so long and is almost afraid to do so, even if, logically, he knows he has to. Jaskier puts all his strength, all of his focus into it and, at the edge of his mind, he thinks he feels the tug of sleep, of rest, of a hazy escape. But no. 

No, he has to make sure his body will survive another bout of haziness. Has to survive.   
“Please...”

Finally, Jaskier thinks, and even if it’s just a whisper of a thing, really, hoarse and low and utterly pitiful, Jaskier is pleased with it. Isn’t sure he can get himself to speak any more than that, not with how his heart thuds in his chest, slow and aching, each beat reverberating in his skull, through his tired limbs. The lady looks down, then.

“Is it… Jaskier?”

And he recognises her voice, Jaskier winces as he does, and he can’t help but curse his luck out too. Of course, _of course_ , he’d run into Yennefer, because of all the sorceresses he could meet randomly in his half-delirious travels, it’s got to be the one that absolutely _terrifies_ him. Not more than-

Jaskier blinks, but there’s a sweet taste on his tongue, and suddenly, he’s in that damn room again. His thoughts turn frantic then and he tries to blink out the illusion, the _memory_ , but it’s not working, there are metal cuffs on his worst and ankles and there are hands on his skin, punching, scratching, _staining_ him, and Jaskier suddenly wants to run away, but his body’s not listening, he’s-

He’s being raised onto his feet and led along. His panic climbs higher and higher and threatens to drown him, but Jaskier can’t control his own body, so he lets her do it, instead. Lets the mage - which mage? - half-push, half-support his weight towards someplace. Slowly, Jaskier loses track of time, of where he is, of who he is and what is going on around him, he-

* * *

He wakes up on a bed with a golden pair of eyes trained on him and the pain inside his chest _explodes_.

It’s Geralt, it’s his White Wolf, Jaskier’s _safe-_

The pain only gets worse and the breath is punched out of Jaskier in short bursts. His lungs burn and he clutches at them, pulls at the shirt that clings to him and pushes it away. It’s like the ache wants to break right out of his ribcage, rip out everything in its way and suddenly, Jaskier is afraid.

There’s Chaos inside him and seeing Geralt makes it rage against Jaskier’s frail body, but Jaskier strains every muscle he has, clenches his teeth so hard that he hears them creak. The spell, the _potion_ , the ones the nilfgaardians used on him, they must have had something to do with finding Geralt and his child surprise, and it wants to act _now_ , because here’s Geralt, here’s their target, here’s the one person Jaskier would go to the edge of the world for, has done so before. And Jaskier cannot let it give away where Geralt is, not so easily, has to fight it, has to do something.

So Jaskier sits up and Geralt looks, face filled with confusion and worry, frowning, as he always is. Jaskier doesn’t even look around, but he knows he’s in some sort of tent. Geralt’s hands hover above his skin and Jaskier almost sobs at how badly he wants to be touched, even if he’s still aching, even if he’s so filthy still. But Jaskier doesn’t wait a second longer, his chest screaming in pain, hot and heavy, as he pushes Geralt out of the way and flees.

He leaves the tent and finds himself in the woods. He runs amongst the trees. His mind goes hazy again, but the agony won’t let him fade away into a trance, and his memories are playing over and over in his head, days in the dark, boots slammed onto his chest, metal cutting into his skin, so, so much pain, and still it barely holds a candle to what he feels now.

There’s shouting that rings in the woods behind him and Jaskier can make out steps, almost silent, but urgent enough to not be muted entirely, as Geralt usually makes sure they are.

Geralt is faster than he is but, fuck, even thinking of his name makes the pain in Jaskier’s chest increase tenfold. He runs even faster, now.

It doesn’t take Geralt long to catch up, to grab Jaskier by the wrist and spin him around, the momentum leaving Jaskier to slam into his chest with a pained ‘oof’. Before Jaskier can even try to squirm away, desperate to not find out what the spell _really_ does when he finds Geralt and can’t run anymore, Geralt grabs ahold of his shoulders and makes Jaskier look him in the eyes. He’s shouting something, Jaskier isn’t sure what, his ears are ringing, and his white strands of hair are glued to his forehead. Jaskier only now registers the cold water dripping from the sky.

He tries to close his eyes, tries to focus on the trees around them and not on Geralt’s desperate face, so familiar and so _worried_ that it makes the pain even worse. Jaskier tries so hard, but _then_.

Then the burning agony _peaks_ and Jaskier can only see light around them. It leaves him breathless and sore and he can’t tell what just happened, but Geralt looks horrified.

Jaskier falls to his knees then and, when Geralt goes after him, to steady him, to help him, he can only see silver eyes and a cruel smile. Jaskier fights back this time around.

* * *

Jaskier wakes up again to the same pain, for only a second, wakes up to his entire body on fire, but he can’t even see the flames, wakes up to his muscles tearing themselves apart, wakes up to suffering like he’s never felt before. It’s so much that, after a second of it, his poor, raw nerves just - _stop_.

Suddenly he feels nothing anymore, only hears the rapid, hummingbird beat of his heart in his ears, only sees black dotted with white sparks and it’s like he’s in a void all over again, falling aimlessly. Jaskier isn’t sure how long it lasts, but then-

 _Then_ he sees Geralt and the feeling of strong arms around him registers in his brain. Jaskier touches his chest, but there’s no more pain. He doubts that he’d actually feel it, even if it was there, but in this moment, all he can think of is the man in front of him, who has tear tracks running down his cheeks, who looks at him with a combination of awe and heartbreak that breaks Jaskier’s damn _soul_ a little. 

In that moment, that _blessed_ moment, Jaskier cares about nothing else, cannot be bothered with memories of hurt and torment, cannot be reached by the even more distant thoughts of abandonment and heartache, because he’s _home_.

* * *

They’re on the road again when Jaskier regains his senses. They’re walking through a meadow and slowly, the world filters through Jaskier’s brain and starts making sense again. The sun is high in the sky with a few trails of white clouds dotting the blue here and there and, from the tall grass, there are white puffs of dandelions that sway in the light breeze. Were the wind any stringer, it would rip the seeds of the dandelions right off the stem, Jaskier muses, blearily. His feet are moving automatically, but he’s no longer shoe-less. Jaskier gasps a little at that and then _really_ looks around himself. There’s Roach on his left, carrying one Yennefer of Vengerberg and a little blonde girl and Jaskier freezes. To his right, there’s-

“ _Geralt_ ”, Jaskier feels the word leave his lips without his permission, but his heart is fluttering in his chest and he’s smiling so widely that his cheeks hurt from it. Or from the still-healing wounds, but Jaskier, ever the optimist, blames it on how absolutely ecstatic he feels all of a sudden.

“I’m… Here. How are you?”, it’s asked in a low voice and it is then that Jaskier notices that they are holding hands, because Geralt squeezes his fingers just so. And Jaskier’s heart feels so tender, suddenly, so filled with longing, that he could cry.

“G-Good”, he says, but something tightens in his chest, his voice cracks as he says it, and just like a dam that’s finally broken in, Jaskier _does_ cry, then. Roach slows down and curious green eyes peek at them as Jaskier bodily throws himself at Geralt, wincing at the pain and at the tears that are now blurring his vision. Geralt, for his part, just catches Jaskier and hugs him so tight that Jaskier thinks that he might actually break a rib, but then the hold turns soft again and Jaskier just buries his face in Geralt’s neck.

“Can you two _not_ keep your romanticisms for after we’ve reached the keep?”, Jaskier hears Yennefer say, her words followed by a sweet giggle that doesn’t come from Yennefer, bit from the girl, and yet, neither Jaskier nor Geralt seem to be all too affected by the statement. Except…

“Keep? Where are we...”, Jaskier pulls away only a few centimetres and Geralt looks at him, all adoring golden eyes and a barely-there quirk to his lips, hands tightening on Jaskier, slipping to his hips to adjust their position. His back is to Yennefer, but he can basically feel her roll her eyes.

“Kaer Morhen”, Geralt answers and Jaskier looks past his shoulder at the blonde girl, and the pieces finally link up in his brain. Rubbing a hand over his cheek to wipe at the tears, Jaskier just takes hold of Geralt’s hand again. Roach starts moving again, too. Jaskier bows then, which is made a bit more awkward with his hand attached to Geralt’s.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the princess.”, Ciri laughs lightly at his antics and Jaskier raises himself from his bow and he and Geralt start walking behind Roach again. He catches a hint of purple before Yennefer looks away again, facing forward, hands clenching on Roach’s reigns.

Jaskier leans into Geralt as they walk across the meadow. His body is starting to ache again, but for now, he walks. He can barely recall the fact that it was _Yennefer_ who brought him back to Geralt after he accidentally met her, but he remembers well enough, how she’d helped him walk when his mind had gone all fuzzy and he thinks he might just write her a song, another one, because, despite every not so pleasant encounter and every less than polite bit of banter, he has _the world_ to thank her for.

Geralt doesn’t say much more, but he keeps his eyes shifting from the path of trotted grass and Jaskier himself and it’s enough to make his eyes burn again.

“I’m sorry, I almost-”, Jaskier starts, but Geralt just furrows his brows and squeezes his hand again and Jaskier closes his eyes and let’s Geralt guide him, the sun warm on his face.

Jaskier knows, is sure that, after everything that he’s experienced these few months, his recovery isn’t going to be easy and he and Geralt have so much to work through, still, but right now?

“No”, it’s a single word, but it’s firm, almost a warning, that comes from Geralt.

Right now, Jaskier just wants to take this moment and bottle it up. Wants this drop of calm in the wild ocean that is life to last forever. He tightens his fingers around Geralt’s and just cherishes the warmth of Geralt’s large, calloused hands, of the rough skin and of the feeling of affection that, maybe at a later point, Geralt will be too embarrassed to acknowledge, but that Jaskier will hold close to his chest until the day he dies.

“I’m here, Jaskier.” _I’m not going to leave you behind, never again_ , goes unspoken, but Jaskier has always prided himself in being able to read Geralt well.

Because through everything, from now on, Jaskier knows that Geralt will be there, right at his side.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the ending lived up to your expectations and wasn't too cheesy, but honestly, writing from Jaskier's POV when he's still too tired to really worry about stuff ends up making everything feel softer. He has time to worry later, and Geralt will be there for him when that happens. And then it takes them months to work through Jaskier's trauma, but in the end, at least he's with those he loves now and he feels safe. He and Yen become gossip-buddies and that's that on that.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that this isn't going to be the most accurate, medically speaking, description of trauma, but if anyone sees a flaw that is very major, please tell me and I will try to fix it!
> 
> As to why I would ever write something this dark, it is a result of my morbid thoughts about hurting the characters I project onto. A coping mechanism, if you will.


End file.
